


The Book of Job

by Storyshark2005



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series)
Genre: Amanda and Anthony die, Angst, Car Accidents, Coping, Counselor Blatt - Freeform, Grief/Mourning, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry again, It's kinda fucked up, M/M, Playing House, So that LawRusso can happen, but there will be funny parts too, oh the angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:01:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 54,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23658769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storyshark2005/pseuds/Storyshark2005
Summary: 👉UPDATED: 6/28, Chapters 9, 10, 11, THREE shorter ones, so don't skip!! ❤️—-They’re at an intersection and Amanda is laughing up front, rose-colored nails tapping on the steering wheel, the radio set to something poppy but old, latin beat, maybe Shakira. He remembers her dark sunglasses and white teeth and how bright her teal shirt was in the late-afternoon sunlight. Sam is next to him wearing a dusty pink knit sweater that ends up soaked red in blood.---Daniel loses half his family in a car accident.
Relationships: Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence
Comments: 114
Kudos: 190





	1. The Book of Job

_ Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me?  _

_ When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint; Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions: So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life. I loathe it; I would not live alway: let me alone; for my days are vanity.  _

_ What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? And that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment? How long wilt thou not depart from me, nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle? _

_ I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself? And why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity?  _

_ for now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be. _

\- (The Book of Job KJV 7:12-21)

***

> _ Santa Clarita Valley Signal, Sunday Edition, 7.15.18 _
> 
> **SANTA CLARITA, Calif. (KABC) --** Two died and three others suffered injuries after two vehicles and a Santa Clarita city bus collided at an intersection Sunday night.
> 
> The crash happened around 4:30 p.m. at the intersection of Golden Valley Road and Sierra Highway. Authorities said a truck towing a trailer rear-ended a mid-size SUV and that vehicle was pushed into a city bus.
> 
> The driver of the SUV, a woman, and one passenger were killed in the crash. Two other passengers in the vehicle were transported to Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, at least one with life-threatening injuries. The surviving passengers’ conditions are unknown.
> 
> "A white truck towing a trailer came up behind the stopped vehicle, collided into it and appeared to push it across the intersection," Sgt. Ryan Schmidt said.
> 
> Authorities also said there were five people onboard the bus, including the driver, and only one person suffered minor injuries.
> 
> Schmidt added that the victim's car was smashed after the truck ended up on top of it. The bus also hit power poles near the intersection from the impact of the crash.
> 
> The driver of the bus and truck were taken to a local hospital to be checked for drugs or alcohol, but authorities said they do not believe those substances were factors in the crash.
> 
> A SigAlert was issued and the intersection would be closed for the rest of the night, authorities said.
> 
> Crews were also working to restore power to the area because the crash affected a nearby electrical pole.
> 
> The victims names have not been released pending family notification. 

***


	2. Sleeping in the Dust

### July 2018

They were coming back from summer camp, a little lake tucked up in the Sierra Pelona mountains in a place called Sleepy Valley. Amanda took the Q7 to pick Anthony up after his month in the sun, and she took Sam and Robby too because there wasn’t much else to do on a hot Sunday in July, and the drive is beautiful, miles of cracked 2-lane pavement winding through the dry high desert, funneling the Santa Ana winds back down to the coast, a dangerous tinderbox-like corridor of wind and heat and fire. They were headed back down, South, toward home.

They’re at an intersection and Amanda is laughing up front, rose-colored nails tapping on the steering wheel, the radio set to something poppy but old, latin beat, maybe Shakira. He remembers her dark sunglasses and white teeth and how bright her teal shirt was in the late-afternoon sunlight. Sam is next to him wearing a dusty pink knit sweater that ends up soaked red in blood. 

Amanda was killed instantly. Anthony, too, sitting in the front passenger seat, as soon as the truck hit them from behind, like an insistent nose from Amanda’s horse when she was a kid, brushing them down with sugar in her pockets. The truck pushed the front end of the Audi into harm’s way, setting them up like a bowling pin for the 30,000lb city bus that shaved the front end of the Q7 off, easy like whipped cream from a mug of hot cocoa. Sam should have died too, by anybody’s estimate. Robby was right beside her, in a pocket of safety that left him with a shallow scratch down the left side of his face, and a bruised up shoulder, no worse than a schoolyard rumble. Sam is folded over, strange and bloody and Robby tries to pull the crumpled metal away, remembers somewhere that he shouldn’t try to move her but the smoke burns his lungs and her eyes aren’t opening. He screams and it’s like slow molasses hours until the sirens come. He doesn’t remember much. 

They ask him, in the hospital. They ask him for his name, for someone to call. They won’t tell him anything, only ask him questions. He’s alone because they take Sam away. Somehow he knows, Amanda and Anthony are gone. 

He hands over his phone with heavy, numb, rubbery fingers. 

He’s got four numbers on his favorites list, not in order of importance, but in alphabetical, something the phone must do automatically: 

_Dad_

_Mom_

_Mr. L._

_Sam_

They start from the top, and call the first name.

They call his father. 

***

The first thing the nurse asks him is _Are you the father of Robby Keene_ and it’s a hospital and nothing good happens in hospitals and Johnny knows his son must be dead. It’s possibly the worst single moment in his life, his brain shuts down and immediately he’s in the darkest, most hellish moment imaginable. 

The second thing she tells him, he wishes she would have started with. _Your son is okay_. He asks some questions, figures out which hospital ( _what the fuck is Robby doing in Santa Clarita_ , he wonders) and the third thing she tells him is that there was an accident, and that she can’t say much else. 

He asks to speak to his son. 

She tells him he’d better just come. 

***

Johnny gets there and finds LaRusso curled up in a waiting room chair, Robby right next to him with his arm wrapped awkwardly around his shoulders. Johnny doesn’t quite know what to do. He’s never seen LaRusso like this, never seen Robby quite like this, but he recognizes despair when he sees it, remembers his own time in the oncology ward and then the hospice, when there was nothing to do but watch his mother slowly waste away. 

Robby’s a little cut up and a little bruised but Johnny’s used to blood. He looks up when he hears Johnny across the room, and he stands up and walks into Johnny’s arms and starts crying and Johnny can barely pull any sense from his words. LaRusso doesn’t look up, Johnny just stares at him over Robby’s head, hunched over, and Johnny finally starts to put it together. 

Robby’s fine, but there were others in the car, _Amanda and Anthony_ Robby sobs out _they’re gone_ and something about Sam and surgery. 

When you die on scene, it isn’t the hospital calling your family. It’s the police department, apparently. _The police told him_ , Robby says. _They brought him up here. They didn’t want him driving._

He calls Bobby first, tells him _I don’t know what to do_. Bobby is in Bakersfield, he’s an hour and a half away but he gets in his car, thank God, and he comes down. 

Johnny hangs up on Bobby and turns back to where Robby rejoined LaRusso, sitting next to him with his arm over hunched shoulders. He doesn’t know what to do. He sits down in the chair next to Robby. Johnny swallows and looks over and he says something like _I’m sorry_. 

LaRusso doesn’t look up, he’s got his hands on either side of his face, the inner knuckles of his index fingers pressed like blinders into his eye sockets. He’s not sure Daniel hears him, or even knows he’s there.

Robby looks over at him with this lost look on his face, and takes his hand, the hand that wasn’t around LaRusso’s shoulders. 

He...honestly. He doesn’t remember much after that. 

***

Bobby gets there, finally. Two hours of horrible silence and no news. Bobby comes in with purpose and hugs Johnny and Robby and he does what Johnny should have done, kneels down in front of Daniel right in the space where he can really _get_ to him, and he tells Daniel he’s a pastor, he tells him his name, he says _I’ll go find the nurse, I’ll go get some news_ and he asks if Daniel’s had anything to drink or eat the last few hours and Johnny feels stupid that he hadn’t asked. 

Johnny’s not even sure if Daniel recognizes Bobby from high school. Probably not. Or maybe he did, who the fuck would care when the kind of thing that’s happenning to Daniel is happenning.

Bobby fails to bring news but he does call Amanda’s parents and Daniel’s mother, speaks in gentle tones and waits through tears and answers futile, repetitive questions. He helps book flights. There was food in there somewhere, Johnny couldn’t tell you what he ate for the life of him.

Four more hours go by like nothing, it’s after midnight before the doctor comes back out. He pulls down his mask and kneels down like Bobby had and Johnny watches the line of LaRusso’s back brace and the doctor keeps his words canted low and Johnny thinks _pleasepleaseplease_ because he knows what _he’d_ do, if the tables were turned, if the answer came back bad, he knows exactly how he’d do it because there wouldn't be anything left to keep going on for. This wasn’t just Sam’s life hanging in the balance.

He catches the last bit _she’s sleeping, she’s on a lot of pain medication_ and maybe the doctor hedges with _she’s not out of the woods yet_ but. But. All he hears is _alive_ and the relief on Robby’s face and LaRusso with tears down his face asking if he can just see her, _please can he just see her?_

They don’t let Robby follow but the doctor leads LaRusso away and Johnny sinks back down into his chair, tips his head back against the wall and Bobby claps a hand on his knee. _Thank God,_ Bobby says, sounding tired and not really like a holy man, the way everyone else says it without knowing if there is one. 

Johnny doesn’t know what to think, he only knows that his son is alive and breathing in the chair next to him, and that Daniel’s son is not. And that of the two of them, the one who got to keep his is maybe not the one who deserved it. 

***

Nobody goes home that night. 

Sam is alive but doped to the gills on pain meds and still in the ICU and what’s left of Daniel’s family is flying in the next day. It’s two in the morning and Bobby pushes a key card into Daniel’s hand and there’s a hotel right across the street. Bobby’s right there the whole time, and Daniel tells him later he knew who he was, and he knew it must have been Johnny who called him, and he’s glad because Daniel is in no shape to talk to anybody, or say words out loud explaining the depth of the tragedy. _Amanda is dead_ and _Anthony is dead_ are not words he can say to himself, much less to his mother or his in-laws. 

He’s also glad he doesn’t have to go home yet. The house would be too big and too dark and empty.

So they all drive to the hotel and Robby insists on taking the bed across from Daniel’s and Bobby and Johnny are in the room next door with the door open between. 

Months later, Johnny tells him how worthless he had felt, how unhelpful and out of place. And it’s true that so much of that night is a blur of pain and everytime Daniel’s brain approaches where it had been that night, where it was headed if Sam was dead too-- everytime he goes near the little locked door in his head he turns away and ignores it as best as he can. 

But he remembers some things. He remembers Johnny handing him a coffee and telling him to drink it. And Robby’s arm around his shoulders. And Bobby’s reassuring blue eyes and his gentle voice. 

Daniel tells Johnny that he was glad he was there. Because it could’ve been worse. He could've been all alone. 

***

Miguel finds out, somehow. 

The next day Johnny wants to find the nearest bar and grab a bottle and crawl inside. Daniel’s in-laws hover around with stricken faces and talk in low tones about _arrangements_ with Bobby— they love Bobby of course, who doesn’t— and Bobby is useful in this kind of situation. And they know about Robby, they’re careful and affectionate with Robby because they had heard about Daniel and Amanda’s recent ward, the poor broken boy they’ve taken under their wing. 

But Johnny only confuses them— _he has a father?_ They frown wordlessly at Johnny and clear their throats awkwardly when Robby pulls Johnny in to see Samantha (it’s almost more than Johnny can take, her whole face is bruised under her oxygen mask, he barely recognizes her) and oh and of course Lucille remembers Johnny, she purses her lips and but doesn’t say anything, thankfully. 

The only reason Johnny hasn’t taken off is Robby, whose wrist is in a brace and who has stitches under his chin and over his cheek and who keeps hovering close to Johnny’s side when he’s not checking in on LaRusso. He says _thanks, Dad_ when Johnny gets snacks from the vending machine and _thanks for being here_ at various points when they’re all just sitting and waiting and he asks Johnny if he’ll go down to the gift shop with him to pick out a teddy bear for Sam. Johnny won’t dare disappoint his kid now, not when he seems to, for whatever reason, _want him to stick around._ It’s bewildering and strange and darkly wonderful, if not probably temporary.

Anyway Johnny keeps his phone on ‘Do Not Disturb’ and checks it to find fourteen missed calls from Miguel. He calls back and has to talk Miguel off the ledge from driving over right then and there, tells him, _it’s just family now_ , pinching his temples against his headache, jittery from coffee and no food and a long, awkward morning. 

“Then what are you doing there?” 

“Robby was in the car,” he snaps. “I’m here for my kid.” 

Miguel falls quiet. “I’m sorry Sensei,” he says, sounding every bit of it, and Johnny’s glad that in all of the recent trouble with Kreese, that Miguel is still far and away Johnny’s. “Is he okay?” 

“He’s in one piece,” Johnny sighs, watching the scattering of nurses in green and pink and blue, messy hair and tired eyes, all of them. 

“I, um. I heard her mom and brother...they...they didn’t make it.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Does she know?” Miguel’s voice is small, reedy. 

“I think so,” Johnny clears his throat. “She’s in and out. Her dad’s been in with her all morning.”

“How...” Miguel stumbles over his words. “How is he? Sam’s dad, I mean.” 

“He’s shattered,” Johnny answers. Miguel is silent, and Johnny tells him he’ll keep him updated and hangs up the phone.

***

Lucille finds him downstairs in the cafeteria, probably trying to hide while the rest of them ate sandwiches from the brown paper bag the pastor had brought a little while ago. Lucille didn’t like turkey and anyway she needed a break from the funeral talk, the tragic talk. She’d done all that herself with Dan, and then with Dan’s brother Louie, and years later helped a broken and clueless Daniel through Mr. Miyagi’s funeral. God how long ago that had been. 

Anyway. She finds Johnny Lawrence downstairs eating a cheeseburger staring at the fountain and fake green plants in the middle of the cafeteria, under the skylight. He was alone at a table with an inordinate amount of ketchup dumped over his red plastic basket of french fries. 

She sits down and opens her salad, and he startles, dropping a french fry. 

“Uh, um--” he says. 

“Mind if I join you,” she deadpans, forking into her spinach. “Relax, I don’t bite.” 

He nods, mouth still open a little, eyebrows hovering up and down. She sees the shadow of Robby’s features in his cheekbones and jawline. 

They eat awhile, he keeps his eyes on his food. 

“How’s Robby doing?” she asks eventually. 

“Uhm. He’s pretty torn up about it. He’s focused on Sam.” He nods, mouth open like he was going to say more, but he doesn’t. 

“Aren’t we all,” she shakes her head, wryly. “He’s a good kid, your son.” 

He bites his lip, shakes his head. “Yeah. He is.” 

“He’s been very good to my son.” 

He nods, staring at his fries. Silence settles in again. There’s a lonely piano sitting across the room. It’s a depressing sight. 

“I like your friend. The pastor. Did you call him?” 

He nods. 

She nods back. “I remember him. He’s the one who threw his belt down at your karate teacher. I thought he might turn out all right, even after he did what he did.”

Johnny looks sharply up. “You remember--” 

“I remember you, too.” 

He stills. She sets her fork down.

“You handed the trophy up to him. I watched you. You were crying.” 

She studies his tired face, the tight way he held his shoulders. 

“So I hoped you might turn out okay too.” 

He ducks his head down. He breathes a little shaky, in through his nose, out through his mouth. 

“I don’t know why I’m still here. I’m...I’m not helping.” 

She sits back, looks over at the fountain, watching the endless water, heavy with the smell of chlorine. “My son needs your son. And your son needs his father.” 

He rubs at his eyes, nods, but doesn't say anything.

She shakes her head, they eat for a while. “I never liked Amanda’s parents. They’re snobs, you know. This doesn’t change that. They’re uppity people. They own a vineyard, for Christsake.” 

She snorts, trying to catch his eye. “They never liked Daniel. Thought he wasn’t good enough for their daughter. They wrote me a letter, you know. Back then, after Daniel proposed. They wanted me to intervene, or something.”

“Jesus,” he says, straightening a little. “Kind of an asshole move.” He was looking a little more normal. 

“You think?” She smiles sideways, keeping her mind away from her dead grandson, keeping it here and now. _You are right here,_ she repeats in her head. 

“He always went for the girls out of his league,” he says quietly, smiling tentatively until he sees she’s laughing too, and he smiles wide and genuine. 

“Well I didn’t teach him to aim low,” she teases, and they laugh some more and clean up their plastic trays and head back to the elevator and the moment fades, but she notices he makes a little effort after that to stand on her side of the room, even if they don’t talk. 

She used to do the dishes every morning after Dan died, early in the morning while Daniel was still sleeping. Even if their apartment had an automatic dishwasher she would get up and turn the water on hot and dip her hands down in the near-scalding water in the sink. 

She would close her eyes against the burn and clear her head from the dreams of her husband who was dead, push away the empty hole where her lover’s heart used to sit snug in her chest. Close off the gaping wound and get ready for the sunrise and Daniel’s alarm and his sleepy blinking eyes-- get ready for the moment she would smile wide at him and welcome him into the day and hand him a glass of orange juice and show him that everything was still okay, that his father was gone, yes, but the world was still worth waking up to. 

She would think and not think of all of these things, and she would repeat over, and over in her head that she was here in front of this sink, in this kitchen, in this apartment on this block and in this city, this city in New Jersey, in New England. She was in America, the place her grandparents had dreamed of and finally had come to, the land of the free and of hope and dreams.

 _You are right here,_ she would tell herself, skin red and burning. _You are right here._

***

### August 2018

He doesn’t need to talk about the funeral. The two closed caskets. He doesn’t ever talk about that again. Sam was still in the hospital and she told him she didn’t want them to wait until she was well enough to come. He doesn’t know if it makes him a bad father but he leaves her in the hospital with Robby for company and just gets it over with. He lets Bobby do all the talking and doesn’t want to remember any of it, not the framed pictures or the flowers or the long lines of crying people to shake his hand and hug him. 

The service feels both too short and eternally long. Somehow he thought he’d feel more, get something out of this, the recounting of two lives. Somehow he expected, or maybe hoped was a better word-- to come out of all this with a bit of closure or peace. Because funerals were supposed to be profound, were supposed to wrap up the meaning of a life, to cover all the ground and the breadth and depth of it. People were supposed to say just the right things so that everybody else felt just the right way, because it was the last chance to close the book on somebody.

He forgot that funerals are almost always as disappointing as they are sad. 

Daniel knows he hasn't cried probably as much as he should have, that much of his grief is still shored up in the levy of will he’s reserving for Sam. To stay alive for her. Show her how to keep going in the way his mother had done for him. 

He’s numbly shaking hands and hugging the line of people, everybody is still crying, the sadness in the room is overwhelming. But he’s hit with a numb kind of shock when he sees Johnny, only because he didn’t expect to see him since Robby wasn’t here. He looks uncomfortable in his tie and it’s a strange kind of reversal of their last reunion as Johnny pulls him in for a hug and Daniel’s so shocked he doesn’t have time to hug back. 

He sells the house. Sam says she doesn’t care. 

He finds them a townhouse to rent in Lake Balboa, still in the school district. Four bedrooms, a couple extra so Daniel can have an office or a dojo, if he ever feels up to it again. Or an extra bedroom in case Robby stays over. He’s been back with his Dad, at least overnight when he’s not spending the day with Sam, driving her to sit on the beach with her crutches leaning against a park bench, or cheering her on at her physical therapy. She likes Robby there instead of Daniel because he makes her nervous, apparently. 

Everything is actually sort of okay in the weeks after, all the way until they’re moved into the townhouse, the first night Sam is home from the hospital, the first night home alone after Amanda’s parents fly back home to Ukiah and Lucille is finally convinced that she doesn’t need to move to the Valley. Daniel makes dinner with moving boxes still stacked in the living room and Sam hobbles up to the kitchen table-- the one from the old house wouldn’t fit, so he’d had to buy a new one, smaller, and not as nice. Daniel pushed it against the kitchen window and left the two unused chairs in the extra bedroom so it wouldn’t be so obvious. 

They both try for a few minutes, but Sam’s fork falls over in her vegetables and she cries all over her plate. Daniel pulls her in but she’s crying so hard she can’t speak, and finally sobs that she wants to be alone for awhile, and hobbles off to her room. 

Daniel goes out to the small square of yard and calls his mother and asks her what he should do. 

_“You needed your space after your father passed, too. Don’t you remember? You didn’t want to talk to me.”_

“I was dying inside,” he chokes out. 

_“I know, baby. It’s all just time. You can’t hurry through healing.”_

“I’m not doing anything,” he shakes his head, he didn’t know how he thought this house would be any better. He should have at least kept her home, in familiar spaces. They would have been better there.

_“You do plenty by getting up in the morning. By being there. That’s your job and that’s the hardest part, you’ve got to keep a smile on your face when you can.”_

“I’m...I’m just not enough for her. Amanda...” he covers his face, reeling because oh God. “She held us all together. This won’t work with just us.” 

_“Well where’s Robby?”_

He breathes in, looks back up and over the yard. “He’s with his Dad. I didn’t wanna...you know. Johnny kind of stepped up and I didn’t want to... It’s Robby’s choice, he has a bed here if he wants it.”

_“You know he’s family, now. This doesn’t change that.”_

“He’s got his Dad. His Dad is his family.” 

_“And you’re his family, too! You think he’s not hurting just like Sammy? He was in that car, and he lost--”_ she chokes up, has to take a minute to form the words again. _“He loved Anthony. And Amanda was his mother this year when he didn’t have one. You can’t just let that slip through your fingers. It’s too precious. Don’t let that boy become a stranger.”_

“What if I ruin what they have?” 

_“I’m talking about dinner, Daniel. Invite him over, watch a movie. Tell him to bring his father if he wants, you can use all the life you can get in that house.”_

“Yeah,” he sighs. 

_“And go out and buy some patio furniture, jeesh the pictures look so depressing, you shouldn’t be inside when it’s so nice out, a little Vitamin D never hurt anybody--”_

He lets his mother’s lecturing voice wash over him through the tinny little speaker, enjoying the normalcy of it, and after they finally hang up he goes into the living room and digs through the stack of boxes until he finds Mr. Miyagi’s old bamboo wind chime. 

He hangs it from the corner of the roof and leaves the sliding glass doors open so he can hear it from inside, from almost anywhere in the house. 

***

Robby asks if he can bring his dad. 

It is a much better dinner, Daniel feels immediately relieved because Sam smiles and Robby hugs her gently, reaching his arms around allowing space for her crutches. Johnny stands in the doorway with a bottle of “something red, it was on sale” and sidles through and helps Daniel pull the table back out and bring in the chairs from the extra bedroom. Robby helps cook and Johnny watches from the breakfast bar with Sam, chattering away about the upcoming school year and how Robby was in district now too and how they might have some classes together. 

Talking with Johnny is still a little stilted, like they’re both trying to avoid anything either too sad or too awkward. Daniel almost misses the old antagonism. Scratch that, he _does_ miss it, because fighting and bickering and arguing with Johnny was as normal and natural as it was to breathe. It was a thing that had changed after the accident, and Daniel wishes for so many of those things. He misses his wife and his son and he misses Miyagi-do and Cobra Kai. Black and white and perfectly situated in opposition. 

They sit at the table with the door to the backyard open to the evening and the windchimes and mostly the kids keep up the conversation. Johnny asks if he’s watched any of the Dodgers lately and of course Daniel hasn’t. So that’s a dead-end. Robby and Sam excuse themselves to go cue up _Dirty Dancing_ and Johnny sighs heavily at his half-full glass of wine and asks if Daniel has any beer. 

“Yes,” Daniel laughs, and pours the rest of Johnny’s wine into his own glass. “It’s not Coors, though.”

***

LaRusso’s fancy wheat beer wasn’t too bad, especially with a slice of lemon in it. They sit at the kitchen table and watch the kids on the couch. 

“Thanks for coming over, by the way.” Daniel’s fingers tap at his wine glass in front of the empty plates. The evening breeze puffs in lightly from the yard, it was really nice, and Johnny wishes he had a little green space like this at his own place. 

“Yeah, man.” Johnny clears his throat, not quite sure what to say. “Thanks for the invite.” 

“It’s been pretty quiet, you know. Kind of depressing for Sam, I think.” He tips his head against his knuckles. He looks even thinner, if that were possible, since the accident had happened. His cheekbones are a little more obvious, the cut of his jaw even sharper. 

“I know what you mean,” Johnny nods, then winces and feels like an idiot because how could he possibly know what Daniel means with half his family gone in the space of an afternoon, through no fault of his own? Sure Johnny had pushed his family away but it wasn’t like they were dead and that was his own fault. 

But Daniel doesn’t seemed to have noticed the fuck-up. He’s frowning over at the kids again. 

“You don’t think they like...” he shakes his head, looks back over at Johnny for an answer.

“What?” Johnny follows Daniel’s gaze. 

“You know, I mean, it’d be easy...” Daniel clears his throat uncomfortably. “You know they’re both young, and they have the same interests, I just wouldn’t want--” 

“Oh--” Johnny chokes on his beer. _“God,_ I don’t think so. I hope not.” 

Daniel shakes his head. “I didn’t think so either, I just.” 

“Yeah, right, I know--” 

“That wouldn't be so good, probably.” 

“No-- yeah. I could have a talk with him if you think--” 

“No, you don’t have to do that, I think they’re just, like--” 

“Yeah, I mean, I think he’s just. They’re just friends. He’s just trying to be there for her.” Johnny nods definitively and thinks this conversation couldn't possibly get worse. 

“How’s, um.” Daniel clears his throat, catching Johnny’s attention. “How’s the dojo going?” 

Aw fuck. 

“Oh. Ah...It’s not.” Johnny stares down into his beer glass. 

“What’d you mean?” 

He’d sorta hoped Robby had told Sam and Sam had passed along the word. Apparently not. 

“Wasn’t working out,” Johnny explains vaguely. “Probably for the best anyway.” 

“Oh.” Daniel frowns.”So you shut it down? No more Cobra Kai?” He laughs a little hopefully, maybe. 

“I _wish,”_ Johnny lets out accidentally and bitterly, and then gives up and explains about the whole embarrassing saga, how Kreese had blatantly and obviously screwed him over, and he leaves out all the self-loathing _how could you not see it coming idiot_ part but Daniel could probably gather that on his own.

“So, he-- he had like, the trademark this whole time? How were you even able to open in the first place, didn’t the city have like, a record, or--”

“I dunno, man. But he’s got it now. Took most of my students, too.” 

“So what are you doing?” 

“Diaz is still pity-paying me, and a couple others. Sometimes we practice in the park.” 

“Oh.” Daniel frowns with his entire face. Johnny wants to die. 

_“Yeah,_ it fucking sucks.” 

“Well if it makes you feel any better, my dojo isn’t doing much better.” Daniel sighs. “Nobody’s using it except the dead trees.”

“What do you mean?” 

“I let the lawn guy go after I re-opened the dojo since Robby and Sam and I were taking care of everything. But after the accident, you know I just...I forgot about it. You gotta water those trees like, every day. So.” He sighs again, heavily, staring down at the table. “Some of those trees were older than Mr. Miyagi, you know.” 

Johnny stares. “You think your little trees are all dead?”

Daniel pulls a sad, wry smile. “Yeah, I just totally forgot. They haven’t been watered in over a month. Poor things, I mean sometimes they can go a few days, but not that long. I haven’t had the heart to actually go and look at them.” 

“Oh. Well. They’re not. Um, dead.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I thought Robby told you. I’ve been driving him over there so he can water the trees every day. He mentioned it a couple days after the...you know, after he knew you and Sam couldn’t get over there. So.” 

Daniel’s mouth drops open. “Are you serious?” 

“Yeah,” Johnny clears his throat for like the hundredth time. 

“Robby--” Daniel turns over his shoulder, shouting to the couch. “ROBBY, you been watering my trees?” 

Robby pokes his head further up from the sofa. Sam looks over too. 

“Yeah,” he nods. “Of course,” and he goes back to watching the movie, like it wasn’t a big deal. 

Johnny watches the slow smile on LaRusso’s face, his tongue pushing sideways into his teeth. 

“No shit,” he murmurs, turning back to Johnny for the first time ever, looking at him with this warm affectionate way that he’s never seen before. “I don’t believe it,” he shakes his head, still with the look and the little grin. 

“I mean it was all Robby. I just drive.” Johnny looks through his beer but he can still see Daniel over the top of the glass. 

“Do you wanna do karate with me sometime?” Daniel asks, he’s not grinning anymore but his eyebrows go up, his voice has kind of a naked quality to it, stripped down and rough and hopeful. 

“Yes,” Johnny answers immediately and truthfully, grabbing onto the hooks in Daniel’s eyes. 

And that’s how it all started, really. After all the bad stuff. Everything changed after that.

***


	3. North of Eden

### September 2018

Naomi first saw the Ukiah Valley in 1975, on a summer trip with her roommate from the teaching program at OSU. She had never seen so much green, the dirt of Stillwater was the color of blood and the Oklahoma sunset. The skies were big and the land was as flat as the people.

She met John in a bar in downtown Ukiah, her roommate flew back home for fall semester but John invited her home to his family’s pear orchard. He took her hand and pulled her through the trees at night and told her he wanted to take the land, all 250 acres of it, and grow wine. Good wine, as good as anything Sonoma could produce. She was good with numbers and told him if he would let her, she would keep the books straight and feed three sons and the dog they would have.

And he had liked the sound of that.

She called her mother from a payphone and told her, _I’m never coming back._

They found the dog two weeks later, and two years later the first son, David. The land was flattened and dug up and the baby vines were green. Another year and they would have grapes. 

And Amanda came. Not a son, but a daughter. Amanda Ruth, she could outrun her brothers and laughed loud and followed her father through the vines during the winter pruning. She scared the boys off and told loud crass jokes and wore baggy t-shirts. She had a round face and long brown bangs that hid her eyes. Not the color of the sea, Naomi knew, but of the Oklahoma sky she had fled from all those years ago. 

Her daughter haunted her then, as she haunts her now.

Naomi asked her over breakfast, when she was twelve or thirteen, if she wanted to borrow any of her mother’s makeup.

Amanda wrinkled her nose up over her bowl of Cheerios. “Why would I want that?” 

“Oh,” the words escaped Naomi’s mouth before she could stop them, “but you’d look so much prettier.” 

There was a dead moment of silence and Naomi pursed her lips shut. She didn’t say anything else, because the terrible thing was they both knew it was true. 

Amanda told her mother, her senior year of high school, after she’d lost fifteen pounds and made the cheerleading team and cut her hair and found and broke every heart in her graduating class, she said: “I’m never coming back here.” 

And she kept her word, for the most part, except for the occasional Christmas or birthday, when she would bring the kids up. She never brought Daniel.

It’s September, high harvest for the whites, especially the huge swaths of Chardonnay bordering the far end of the property, tucked up against the Russian River. David and Jesse would have crews of workers harvesting from now until the reds were ready in October, Merlot and Cabernet Franc and the dark-skinned Syrah. Work from dawn until dusk, the pendulum of the Northern California sun as the only measure of time.

Naomi hugs her ribs, following her husband through the rows of brown, thirty-year old gnarled vines, the bright green leaves and the heavy bunches of grapes, occasionally popping one into his mouth to check the sweetness. These were the rarer varieties up near the house, some of their oldest. 

It's been four months since they lost Amanda, and she can’t stop doing this, combing back through all the old memories, all rough-running water between her and her daughter. 

She sighs, squinting through the sunlit vines at John. “She always was her father’s daughter,” she shakes her head. “I was her mother but she never liked me.” 

He takes his hat off and his thin gray hair is caught up in the wind. She remembers when it was a deep gold, like Robert Redford. “She had too much of you in her. That’s all, and she knew it.” 

Naomi nods, digging her boot into the exposed soil. 

“He sold the house, did I tell you?” 

John eyes up the next vine. “He should sell it all and move Sammy up here. Too many damn people down there, and they pay too much to live. Stupid.” He rests again, his blue eyes narrow. “You talked to him?” 

_The Salesman,_ they used to joke. _Never understood why our daughter would want to be an overpriced bean-counter for a car salesman_ , John would grunt into the fireplace he had built, the smooth stones pulled from the river.

“This morning,” she nods. 

“How’s she doing?”

“He says well. Back in school. Robby, too.” 

“I suppose he’s supporting the boy, too. Father probably didn’t stick around.” John snipped at a few branches, snorting. 

“I’m sure but he didn’t say.” 

“You didn’t ask? That’s some restraint, coming from you,” he stops, smiles a slow, wry grin. The same one he had passed down to Amanda.

“Well. I still want to see my granddaughter, don’t I?” she insists, pursing her lips.

“That you do,” John agrees. The sun is hiding behind a thick bank of clouds, the sky is gray and a little damp. 

“Well,” she looks up. "The boys’ll be up for lunch. I’ll put something together.” She pats him on his old back, and sets off for the house.

***

### October 2018

Daniel has never missed a Parent-teacher conference, and so the first ones after the accident present a small but comforting road sign, _Normal is this way...5mi...keep going!_

At least he’s thinking they’ll be good for him. Sam had always been an exceptional student _“bright, so sweet, she’s a joy in class”_ so the conferences were really just an opportunity for an ego boost and a pat on the back. Some years, they’d even bought gift cards for Sam or Anthony’s favorite teachers, _thank you, oh no, thank YOU!_

Even Anthony, despite his usual lethargy and apathetic behavior for anything not resembling a video game at home, did well in school. _A’s and B’s, never a C._ He zipped through academics without ever seeming to put any studious effort in whatsoever. Sam, at least, had cracked the crease on all of her textbooks.

It was a love fest, with all the teachers. 

But this was the first one he would be doing alone. 

Daniel looks down at his list of appointments, all spaced 20 minutes apart, _AP Chemistry, English Lit, US History, Spanish III, CP Trigonometry, Intro to Economics._

It seemed like a heavy load. But his daughter was nothing if not driven. And, he suspected, she was filling up the spare hours as much as he was trying to do, those spare hours with nothing to do but sit, and think, and remember.

There’s a printed out map on the back of the schedule, but Daniel hasn’t needed directions in this school, not since the Fall of 1984, back when he needed every hallway and detour he could memorize, ducking out of Physics class so he wouldn’t run into Johnny and the gang, spending his lunch hour in the library on days Ali was gone, a two-fold strategy to both avoid the Cobras, and also the gut-churning anxiety of having to find a seat anywhere else. 

He was walking past the library, thinking of going in and finding his old corner between _Biography_ and _Biology_ , when he spots a head of blonde hair, none other than Johnny Lawrence. He was wearing his denim jacket, dark but faded with one cuff unbuttoned and the collar messy and only half folded over. He was frowning, head bent over his own class schedule.

“Johnny--” 

Johnny turned, looking up. He didn’t frown or smile, just raised his eyebrows in surprise, or maybe just plain recognition. 

“Hey, man--” 

They shook hands, and Daniel bit his lip through a moment of only slightly-awkward silence. They saw each other all the time, these days. Sam had started inviting both of them over for dinner on Fridays, sort of a feeble attempt as keeping the old tradition going. 

Daniel knew several things about Johnny’s life these days: that Johnny was having a tough time recovering after Cobra Kai. That he had gone back to handyman work to cover the rent. That he was still teaching his few remaining students on the weekends. That he was exhausted and working and cooking dinner for his kid. All the full-time Dad stuff.

“How’s it going?”

“Okay.” 

“You, uh, just get here?” 

“Yeah, I worked late.” 

“How’s that going?” 

“It sucks,” Johnny shrugs. “It’s money, though.” 

“You ever done one of these before?” 

“I think I showed up for one when he was in first grade or something.” 

Johnny rolls his schedule into a paper tube, and Daniel stares at his unbuttoned cuff again, the denim hitting lower just over his knuckles. 

“You wanna hit a few together?” He blurts out, thinking immediately and regretfully of the desperate tone.

“They won’t care?”

“They’ll just be happy to cut twenty minutes off their night.”

“Don’t they have different teachers?” Johnny frowns, but angles closer, unfurling his already battered up schedule. It was wrinkled and crumpled, set next to Daniel’s own pristine copy. 

“Nah, see--” Daniel points to the paper. “They pretty much teach all the same classes, now. See, Math, English, Spanish-- Biology teacher teaches Chemistry, too. Sam’s got Econ too but she’s doing fine in that, I don’t really need to go--” 

“LaRusso your kid is ace-ing all her classes.” 

“Hey, you never know,” he laughs, “she could be rolling joints in the bathroom between classes, plotting the demise of her favorite karate rival."

Johnny shakes his head. “That’s not even funny.” 

Daniel grins, reaching up to brush at Johnny’s shoulders. “Oh, I dunno, I think you’re dry by now, it’s only water, a little water never hurt anybody, right?”

“You know your karate master kicked me in the balls that night, right? We’re lucky Robby’s even here.” 

Daniel laughs, and Johnny bumps his shoulder, eyes sparking playfully despite the argument. 

“That was the dumbest costume I’ve ever seen, by the way.”

“It was really heavy, actually,” Daniel points down the hallway. “Palmer first? He’s the biology teacher.” 

Johnny doesn’t bother answering, stepping in the right direction. It might be Daniel’s imagination, but he thinks he sees his shoulders drop, a little more at ease. Daniel tries to keep a damper on his relief to be doing this with another person at his side. 

“I can’t believe you made it all the way to that fence,” Johnny chuckles. “You were a quick little bastard. That was...what, at least a couple of miles.” 

“Fastest I’ve ever run in my life-- I thought you guys were gonna kill me--” 

Johnny has the decency to wince, but he doesn’t apologize. Daniel doesn’t really need one, anyway. He’s had enough sympathy the past few months to last a lifetime.

They reach the classroom door, and Johnny peers in to see through the rectangular glass window. There was another couple sitting on stools in front of the long black lab tables, talking to Mr. Palmer. 

“Look at this dweeb,” Johnny snorts, glancing back at Daniel for confirmation. “He’s wearing a sweater vest-- and a _sweater tie!”_

Daniel rolls his eyes but indulges Johnny, and leans over his shoulder to peek, touching his elbow lightly. 

_“Don’t be a dick,”_ he mutters lowly, trying not to laugh, but Johnny’s gleeful expression is contagious. 

Because he was right. It was a pretty stupid looking tie. 

***

Johnny’s evening improves by a factor of about ten. It turns out, having to talk to teachers is a lot more fun with LaRusso, and between meetings they fuck around touring the place, Daniel pointing out all the places Johnny had bullied him. 

Daniel points to a bank of lockers before their last appointment. 

“See that was my locker, remember? You used to throw my books all over the floor and try and shove me inside after English class.”

Johnny had nearly forgotten the thrice-weekly ritual. He grins, reliving the memory fondly. “It was just crazy, man, you were just so tiny! Like your shoulders would fit, it was just that fat head of yours--” 

_“Har-har,_ you know Dutch took my shoes one time, I had to go to gym class with no shoes on--” 

“He gave ‘em back!” He remembers Dutch’s crazed expression, laughing like a psychopath, running down the halls windmilling the shoes around by the laces. Even Tommy had looked concerned. And Tommy _loved_ messing with LaRusso. 

“He gave ‘em back, alright. Not till after he cut the laces so short I couldn’t even tie ‘em back on--”

Johnny laughs hard right in his face, he can picture poor LaRusso tripping all over the gym during the dodgeball game _jesus fucking christ--_

“--it’s not funny, Johnny, I almost broke my nose that day, that big Mexican kid, remember him? I think he had a mustache already.” 

“Roman something--” 

“Yeah, Roman Gallindo. He was a Dutch fan, thought it was really funny, he checked the ball into my nose so hard I thought he broke it.”

“Oh fuck, yeah that’s right! You got blood all over the floor!” 

"Coach Hunt made me clean it up myself, he was a real prick--"

Johnny nearly chokes, it was so fucking funny. "Classic LaRusso...he had a nickname for you right?"

"I dunno Johnny, I’ve only tried very hard for thirty years to forget it.” 

“No seriously, do you remember?” And Johnny might actually be giggling, just a little bit. “What was it, it rhymed or something...” 

LaRusso stops. Glares. He does actually look kind of pissed. "Really, Johnny? Think popular cinema and rampant racism all rolled into one."

Johnny stares at him blankly.

"Think Rocky Balboa--"

There it is. “-- Rocky LaWoppy!!"

LaRusso's glare gets more glarey, if that was even possible.

“Oh my God, holy shit dude, how did he ever get away with that??” 

“Well, Johnny, I dunno, maybe it was the 80s and he was a white prick and I was the only Italian in the whole school. Maybe there wasn’t anybody around to give a shit.”

Johnny feels his stomach sink a little, remembers the shiver of disgust hearing Kreese call Miguel _spic, ‘that Mexican’, wetback, tacohead,_ all times Johnny had corrected him and told him not to call him that, and the uncaring way Kreese had shrugged his shoulders. He had never seen Miguel as a whole person, as a student worthy of his full respect. He’s not even sure, now, if the insults had been a manipulation tactic against Johnny, or if it was just Kreese being a total fucking asshole.

Before Johnny can think of something appeasing to say to LaRusso, a voice calls out. A tall lady in a pantsuit was click-clacking her way down the hallway, with Tracey Blatt at her heels like a frazzled cocker spaniel. 

“Gentlemen!” the pantsuit lady calls. “Do you have a moment?” 

“Hey, Nancy.” LaRusso transforms, all smiles, the charming car salesman. They shake hands.

“Hey, Daniel,” Tracey smiles earnestly, clutching a binder. Her smile fades for Johnny. “Oh hi, Johnny. This is Principal Bletchely, I assume you’ve never met?” 

Johnny shakes the lady’s hand, ignoring Tracey. Just as weasley and annoying as he remembered. 

“Gentlemen, if you have just a few moments, could we speak privately? Counselor Blatt’s office is just this way.” 

“Is everything alright?” Daniel looks from one to the other. 

“Oh, yes, absolutely. We were just hoping to...check in. Counsellor Blatt and I have both been keeping a closer eye on Samantha, this year. And Robby, of course. We know...this year must be difficult for you, Daniel.” Bletchely had the decency to look uncomfortable. “You and Amanda...you both did a lot for this school.”

Daniel pales a little, face slackening. “Yeah,” he says. “Well. We all miss her.” 

“Um,” Tracey clears her throat. “I don’t think we need to say anything more on that, Principal Bletchely. Samantha’s still coming in for her weekly check-ins, she’s doing great, we don’t need to keep Daniel any longer...” 

Would you look at that, Tracey Blatt wasn’t completely useless. 

“--oh of course, you’re right Tracey.” Bletchely waved her hands. _“You_ on the other hand--” she turned right on Johnny. “I’ve got some good news for you.” 

“Oh, uh--” Johnny looks over at LaRusso. Somehow, instead of _See you later?_ he blurts out, “You wanna wait up?” 

Daniel nods, Johnny could almost swear he looked relieved. “Yeah, I’ll go see that Econ teacher,” He waves goodbye to the two women, and leaves.

Johnny turns back to Bletchely. “You sure this is good news? ‘Cause the last time I went to the Principal’s Office it wasn’t fun.” 

She laughs, and slaps Johnny hard on the shoulder. “You’re _funny_ , Mr. Lawrence!”

***

The Econ teacher only had great things to say about Sam, and after five minutes of talk and awkwardly stammered condolences, Daniel spends the rest of the time pacing in front of the trophy cases in the front entrance of the school. He slows in front of an old picture of the 1984-85 Cheerleading squad. Ali kneeling in front, bouncy curls, freckles, and that knockout smile. He spots Susan’s dark hair, and Barbara’s mile-long legs. But it’s Ali who really shines in the photo, so vivid he could almost reach through the glass and touch her sunkissed skin.

Thirty four years ago, the distance between that world and this one-- it seemed unfathomable.

Johnny finally comes back down the white vinyl-tiled hallway. He quirks his eyebrows as he nears, Daniel has a weird moment where the only thought going through his head is how thick and messy Johnny’s hair looked, how it would feel to push his fingers through it, feel his nails on his scalp. 

“Hey,” he shakes the nagging image. “How’d it go?”

Johnny pauses before he answers, eyes focused where Daniel’s had been a minute earlier, on Ali’s photo in the trophy case. 

“Uh...fine. It was fine.” He pulls his eyes back to Daniel. 

“Did you drive here?” Daniel asks, idiotically. What, did he walk, what was that?

Johnny nods, and twisting his poor battered schedule into a tight tube, leads the way back through the doors. “It was about Robby.” 

“Teachers all said he was doing great,” Daniel pushes the door open, breathing in the balmy sixty degree evening.

They walk past the fenced-in courtyard, the open-air banks of green lockers, the orange and blue birds-of-paradise blooms and raised beds of geraniums. 

“Yeah, they said...he’s doing really great. If he keeps his grades up, and takes a few summer classes...they’re gonna let him move back up.”

“Move him back-- so he can graduate with Sam?”

“Yeah.” 

“Well that’s...Johnny, that’s great!” Daniel stops Johnny with a hand at his elbow. The black Challenger sits on the opposite side of the parking lot, now mostly empty.

Daniel studies his face, the long slope of his nose in the pale wash of the security lights. The hidden, guarded expression. 

“Yeah,” he nods, eyes watery. He’s trying not to look at Daniel.

“Well, what’s...” he tries to catch Johnny’s eye. “What’s wrong, what’s goin’ on?” 

“I just...” Johnny clears his throat, works his jaw around. His watery blue eyes glow in the night lights. “It’s just a fuckin’ shame, you know. He never...you know his teachers always said he was a problem kid. I figured he took after his parents, but. All he really needed was somebody like you. It’s just...” he laughs, a choked off sound. “It’s fuckin’ sad...”

“Johnny,” Daniel tries, but there isn’t really a whole lot to say. Robby was blossoming with the first real support system he’d ever had. It was true. “I mean, you’re a part of that now--” 

“I’m failing him,” Johnny sniffs in roughly through his nose. “He doesn’t have a room of his own, he doesn’t have a good place to study-- I don’t know what I’m gonna do with him if he takes the summer classes, he’ll have to be at the library all day like one of the poor kids--” 

“Hey, you’re gonna figure it out--” 

“--I’m making shit money, my business is a failure, the kid has no college fund, I-- Shannon sure as shit had no plan. I’ve got to do better for him, but it’s all I can do to make him dinner every night, you know, I’m just shit at all of this. But I’ve got to do better for him, I’ve just...”

Daniel watches the tired, hopeless angle of Johnny’s shoulders.

“Sorry, man, I’m just...I’m fuckin’ tired, I guess. I’ve been sleeping on the pullout, you know, so my back hurts, that doesn’t help.” 

They stand out there, in the middle of the asphalt. The lights from the soccer field behind the school shut down with a loud metallic slam. 

Daniel blurts out, “You should move in. With us.” 

“What?” Johnny seems genuinely confused. 

Daniel can’t believe he said it out loud, but it’s an idea that’s been in his head awhile. The two extra rooms filled with boxes and exercise equipment, he could get rid of all that or put it in the storage unit, the one with all the photo albums and extra cookware and dojo equipment. Amanda and Anthony’s clothes he still hadn’t been able to give away. 

“How much are you paying in rent?” Daniel asks, mind spinning. 

“How much is yours?” 

“I asked first.” 

Johnny waffles. “$1600.”

“Great,” Daniel claps, shifting into car salesman mode. “You split my rent, let’s say $1,000 a month.” Daniel’s actual rent was close to $4,000 but Johnny didn’t need to know that. “That helps me out, you start saving your money and quit the job you hate, Robby gets a room, Sam’s gonna love it, everybody wins. It’s a win-win. It’s a win-win-win- _win_ , actually.” 

Daniel tells himself to cool it, to breathe, be normal!

“There’s no way 1000 bucks covers half your rent,” Johnny glares, skeptical. But he hadn’t said no. 

“It’s close enough, Johnny, and seriously anything that makes Sam happy right now is priceless. You’d really be doing me a favor...” he trails off. “I mean you’re right, you gotta get Robby a room, that couch isn’t good on your back. And...and if you hate it, you can always move out.” 

Johnny turns, stares out at the headlights cruising down the road. “You want to sleep on that?” 

Daniel shakes his head. “No.” 

“I’ll ask Robby?” 

“Yeah. See what he thinks.” 

“Okay, man.” He narrows his eyes. “A thousand bucks?” 

“Yeah.”

“This isn’t...” He shakes his head. “I don’t want it to be like the car all over again. I’ve gotten enough charity--” 

“Didn’t my cousin torch that car?” They float a little close, and Daniel finally gets a grin out of him. “I think I owe you.” 

“No.” Johnny shakes his head, serious but his eyes are smiling a little. “You don’t.” 

“Well we’re friends now, right? It’s just a roommate thing. Win-win.” 

“Win-win-win-win,” Johnny corrects. 

Daniel laughs, tongue pushed up against his teeth. “That’s right.” 

“You’re _sure...”_

“I’ve lived with one Lawrence, I can handle two.” 

“You don’t know what you’re asking for, LaRusso,” Johnny laughs. Daniel feels a little giddy, almost flirtatious, and he thinks he must be delirious or tired. 

“Just sell that piece of shit apartment--” 

“Hey, it’s not so bad. The shower-head has a massage mode, you know.”

“You don’t need that.” Daniel cuts himself off before he blurts out that he knows shiatsu. Jesus.

“Hm.” Johnny’s eyes flick around. 

“We’ve got great showers...the Master has a jacuzzi...” Daniel takes a calming breath. “Anyway. I’ll call you tomorrow? Get the verdict?” 

Johnny bites his lip. “I should be off by six.” 

They say goodnight and Daniel watches Johnny walk back to the Challenger, gleaming black in the night, before he turns back and walks across the lot to the Audi. 

At home he keys open the door and hears Samantha’s chattering voice on the phone. 

“Dad! Dad--” she limps down the hallway on her good leg, one hand braced against the wall. “Robby just told me, are you serious??” 

“So it’s okay with you? I should have asked but I thought—”

She throws her arms around his neck and kisses his cheek, cutting him off with an _Oof!_

“Okay,” he hugs her tightly. “That’s good then.” 

“Can I move my room upstairs? I’ll be fine with the stairs, Dad, I swear I’ll be careful and the closet is a little bigger up there—”

Sam’s voice is like music, Daniel heats up leftovers and they sit on the couch and catch up on _Game of Thrones._

Daniel feels a little buzz in his pocket, he pulls open the message from Johnny. 

_ >> verdict from Robby- dad can we start moving tomorrow _

_ >> _🐣

_ >> if ur still good I think its a go _

_ > Sam can’t wait! _

_ > yes of course just give me a date we will help u move _

_ > what’s the chicken emoji? _

_ >> i don’t know I just like that one _

_ >> I think Robby is just stoked he won’t have to eat any more of my cooking _

_ > what am I your personal chef now?? _

_ >> don’t worry Danielle I’ll mow ur lawn like a good husband u stay in the kitchen where u belong _

_ > if you really mow the lawn it’s a deal _

_ >> _🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣

“What are you smiling at?” 

Sam is grinning at him from behind her laptop, snuggled under a blanket across from him on the couch, toes poking at his socked feet. 

“Oh, Johnny’s just...being funny.” He shakes his head, clicking his phone off and studying his daughter’s face. Her mother’s playful dark blue eyes. 

“I’m really glad you guys are friends,” she smiles. “That was tough for Robby. I think it’s a really good idea, Dad.”

“Just remember that one would ya?” Daniel pokes her foot playfully. “Your Dad is a genius!” 

She rolls her eyes, and laughs. 

It was the best night Daniel can remember in a very long time.

***

Johnny’s lease renews every year, and it’s up again only two weeks later. Johnny rents a pickup truck because he says _U-Hauls are for pussies_ and forces a nervous Miguel Diaz along to help. Sam was off crutches but still weak from all the hospital time. They banish her to the sofa to watch. 

There isn’t really a whole lot to move, Johnny gets it all in two truckloads. Daniel and Robby move all of Sam’s things to the spare room upstairs, while Johnny and Miguel haul things into the living room. 

Daniel stands around the living room, looking at the few boxes, almost no furniture. “It doesn’t seem like alot,” he comments. 

“Yeah, I left a bunch of shit out on the curb.” Johnny puts down a box, wipes his hands on his jeans. He was wearing a brown V-neck t-shirt, now covered in patches of dark sweat on his chest and under his arms. “The sofa was shot, and the yellow chair was just one Bobby gave me after he left for Bible college. And I had a bunch of kitchen shit I figured I wouldn't need.” Johnny raises his eyebrows, tipping his chin up hopefully. 

“Ahhhh, okay, okay, I can take a hint,” Daniel laughs. “I’ve got some lasagna heating up, it’ll be ready in five.” 

_“Yeessss,”_ Johnny pumps his fist. 

Daniel turns to announce lunch to the room, but finds it empty. “Where are the kids?” 

He heads upstairs with Johnny at his heels to Sam and Robby’s new rooms, and finds all three of them in Sam’s new space. She was seated in her giant, fluffy white beanbag chair pointing to a place on the wall for Miguel to hang a framed cat poster. Robby was making up her bed with new sheets, watching with a guarded expression. 

Daniel leans in on the doorframe, watching, Johnny’s breath puffing warm at his neck. 

“Up, _up,_ just a little bit higher!” she laughs, directing Miguel. 

Miguel groans under the weight of the framed print. “Sam, I’ll need a step ladder to get the nail that high, isn’t this good enough?” 

“I can do it,” Robby frowns. 

“It’s fine, _I got it_ ,” Miguel snaps, more frustrated than angry. “If that’s where she wants it.” 

“Yep, right there!” Sam grins, then meets Daniel’s eye. He tilts his head a little. She gives him a wink. 

“Okay, I’ll go get the hammer.” Miguel slumps out of the room, pausing to ask Daniel for a stud finder. 

“There’s one in the toolbox!” Johnny yells back over his shoulder, totally delighted. He turns to Samantha. “I like your style, Miss LaRusso.” 

She bites her lip, laughing. “I thought I’d put him to work before we’re friends again.” 

Robby goes over to the wall, reaching up to the spot. He shakes his head. “It’s not that high,” he comments. He turns back to Sam. “I could do it without a stepladder.” 

She rolls her eyes. “Miguel is taller than you.” 

_“Barely,”_ he huffs. “I could still get it.” 

“You guys hungry?” Daniel interrupts. 

“YES!” Miguel groans, coming back up the stairs, hammer and stud finder in hand. “I couldn’t find a step-ladder, anyway.” 

“It’s fine, Robby says he can do it without one.” Sam smiles. 

“You know what, have fun!” Miguel deposits the tool on Sam’s bed and heads back downstairs, “I’m starving!” 

Robby and Sam follow. Johnny picks up the stud finder from the bed and pushes it into Daniel’s chest, giggling. 

“Looky Danielle, I found a _stud--_ ” 

“Great,” Daniel swipes the stud finder and tosses it across the room. “Now I’m living with _three_ kids.”

They eat lunch and Johnny goes to return the truck and take Miguel home. He stands in the front doorway. 

“Well they didn’t kill each other,” Daniel comments, looking back at Robby, then Miguel waiting in the truck outside.

“Nah, they’ll get there.” Johnny’s eyes are warm, and Daniel feels a little stripped down by them. 

“Well you and me... we’re doing okay. If we can do it.” Daniel shrugs. 

Johnny nods. “Yeah. We are.” He glances back out to the truck, then back at Daniel. “I’ll see you at home, then?” 

“I’ll be here,” Daniel nods, and watches him go.

***


	4. Hurts So Good

### June 2019

It’s been almost a year, since the accident. Robby has had by far, the best school year he can remember. With Sam’s help (assuming he passed his summer classes) he would be back at grade level by August, ready to graduate. He was thinking about college, for the first time in this life, not as a joke but as a real possibility. His teachers actually liked him, which was a nice change. 

He’s still not talking to any girls besides Sam, but that part of his life can wait, he thinks. 

He gets to do karate at the dojo whenever he wants. Sam’s been off crutches for months and walking normally and she’s getting stronger every day, which is amazing. She’s his best friend and she isn’t sad all the time. 

Well. There are rough days. Anthony’s birthday was one of them. 

And the most surprising part was maybe that he and Diaz were actually getting along alright. It helped that ever since the accident, Diaz had backed off all his obvious attempts to get Sam back. Which made it a lot easier because it meant Robby didn’t have to spell it out to Diaz that the last thing Sam probably needed right now was boyfriend drama. He still got these pining looks on his face in the dojo but Sam mostly ignored it or was oblivious enough not to notice it. 

Plus. Mr. LaRusso was protective of Sam and not stupid so he only paired Sam up with Robby because Robby knew all the stretches she was still suppossed to be doing for her physical therapy. So Diaz and Aisha and Bert and Demetri all switched on and off with each other (well to be honest nobody wanted to be with Demetri) and Robby always got to be paired up with Sam. 

Perfect. 

Except this weird thing. 

So...

Ok. 

His Dad had definitely been trying to date Diaz’s mom. Which was fine except for when you date you generally take somebody home at some point and his Dad probably hadn’t felt okay taking Carmen back to the house with Robby and Sam and Mr. LaRusso. And they definitely weren’t going back to hers with Diaz and grandma in the next room. So they had gone out to dinner a few times and twice for “salsa night” and all those nights his Dad still came home a little tipsy in his nice date outfit and finished the night off with a beer and the eighth and ninth innings of a Dodgers game with Mr. LaRusso on the couch. They even did this weird thing where they’d watch the game on mute and turn a _radio_ on (Robby didn’t even know anybody owned those anymore outside of the car) and listened to the game that way because the “radio announcers actually know what they’re talking about.” Like. They were both in full agreement on this point. 

Not only had his Dad and Mr. LaRusso seemed to have put their differences aside. They had become like... _best friends._ They were together _all the time._ Mr. LaRusso had pretty much taken his hands out of the dealership and he was teaching karate with Johnny full time. Like...two or three classes _a day._ They even let Diaz design a logo with a Cobra and a Crane in it. They still argued over teaching styles and philosophies all the time. But. It was _their dojo._ Together.

They had sort of become this family unit together. Which Robby thought was working out pretty well. He knows it’s a little weird but people all know about Amanda and Anthony and anybody who knows about that would (or should) cut them all a little slack. Especially Mr. LaRusso. Mr. LaRusso was _not_ good by himself. And it was obvious how well Robby’s Dad did without karate and competition keeping his mind occupied. And this way Robby had his mentor back, and his Dad in his life again. And Sam...well it wasn’t the same he knows, but at least there was some distraction from the bad stuff. 

Anyway, the point being. They were a makeshift family but Diaz waves Robby over right before class on a Friday and this is really the first time any of it gets weird. 

_“Psst-- hey,_ Keene, lemme ask you something.” Diaz looks around furtively, Mr. LaRusso and his Dad were snickering together about something in the kitchen. 

Robby snorts but walks over, crossing his arms. “What are you, in first grade?” 

Miguel motions Robby over, still looking back over his shoulder. 

“Hey, so I have a question for you.” 

“What.” 

“Um. So.” Miguel’s face squishes up uncomfortably. “Sam’s Dad.” 

Robby rolls his eyes. “What about him.” 

“Uhm. Have you...do you think there’s any chance that he. That they...that _he--”_

“Dude, _what?!”_

“Thathecouldbegay.” Miguel hisses it out all in one word. 

Robby takes a second to translate. _“What?_ Why would you think that _\--”_

Miguel grabs Robby fully by the elbow and drags him outside. There’s still a couple minutes of stretch time left. 

“Ok,” he starts, eyes darting around, laying his hands out in the summer hot air. “So Sensei and my Mom went out on a date again last night, right?” 

“Yeah, and?” 

“Okay well she came home and I heard her and my ya-ya talking in her room. My mom was crying so I snuck up to the door--” 

“Will you just get to the point--” 

“Ok well she was saying like, your Dad was texting on his phone when they were eating and then when they were dancing she noticed he had improved a lot and she asked him how and he was like _oh LaRusso gave me a lesson_ and the he was basically blabbing about Sam’s Dad all night and my Mom got upset and asked him why he was even taking her out to dinner and he was all clueless and I guess he hasn’t even really kissed her? So she was like ‘ _why don’t you date Daniel you already live with him’_ and he got mad and said something mean I guess or insensitive, she didn’t say, and then my ya-ya was like, _he’s clearly in denial--”_

Robby has no idea if all of Diaz’s stories are this rambling and pointless. This one is a real doozy. 

“Ok so they’re really good friends...?” Robby shakes his head. “What’s your point about Mr. LaRusso? All you’ve said so far is my Dad is shit at sealing the deal.” 

“I guess...” Miguel shakes his head. “I guess I thought if I had some idea of where Mr. LaRusso is at...I mean I just can’t picture Sensei Lawrence like that. I dunno man. I’m just trying to figure out why he’d treat my mom like that.” 

Robby frowns. “I dunno, man. It kind of just sounds like a bad date to me.” 

Robby hears his Dad clapping and yelling instructions from inside. 

“Yeah. You’re probably right,” Miguel sighs. “I dunno what I was thinking. Sorry if I, like, implied...” 

“It’s fine.” 

“It’s funny,” Diaz walks back into the dojo with Robby at his shoulder. Sam turns to look at them from her seated position on the floor, waving them over with a smile. 

“Once you get something in your head,” he continues, “you start seeing things. It messes with you.” 

“Right,” Robby nodded, and took his seat beside Sam as Miguel walked to the other side and sat down beside Aisha. He looked to the front of the room, his Dad was half turned to where Mr. LaRusso was tapping something out on an iPad, probably the roll call. His Dad was speaking lowly, like they were finishing a joke, and Mr. LaRusso laughed out loud, eyes dancing and fixed on Johnny, showing off a brilliant white horseshoe of smiling teeth. 

“Okay, PUSHUPS, on your knuckles, in 3...2...1...” 

Robby shook his head, emptied it of thought, and focused his weight over his knuckles and toes. 

***

### August 2019

Johnny pushed his sunglasses up into his hair, craning through the open window of the Challenger, and seeing no one he was looking for out front, pulled his phone out and dialed Miguel’s phone again. 

No answer. Damn. 

Miguel and Sam should have been done with their little debate club practice thing. Which Johnny had had no idea Miguel had been doing in addition to karate. Sure, Miguel had mentioned it a few times but Johnny had thought that like, it was a joke?? Senior year was no time for lame nerd shit like debate club.

Anyway Robby thankfully had no interest, and was back at the dojo practicing with LaRusso, but twice a week Johnny swung by the high school to pick the two chuckleheads up so they could catch the last half-hour or so of practice. Which, they would miss altogether if they didn’t hurry it up. 

Johnny was typing out a salty text message when a horrifically perky voice startled him, jarringly close to the window. 

“Oh, hi Johnny!” 

Tracey Blatt was bent over at the waist, grinning in through the car’s passenger side window. _Jesus_ , who does that, sneaks up on the passenger side?!

“Oh, er, hey. What’s up?” 

“Are you waiting on Robby?”

“Uh, nah. Sam and Miguel.” 

Tracey nodded. She’d spent quite a few “required sessions” with both Sam and Robby before the start of the semester last year.

“Oh, yes, debate! I used to _love_ debate club, it was so much fun, exploring arguments and really getting into the _repartee,_ if you know what I mean!” She had a far off, starry-eyed expression. 

“No I don’t, but hey, it was great seeing you--” 

“So what plans do you have for your bachelor night?” She shifted her bag to one side, resting her arm up on the door and really leaning in. 

“My _what?”_

She giggled. “Oh, you know, with your roomie gone for the night, what you are gonna do?” 

There was an awkward pause, and finally Tracey must have figured out that Johnny had no goddamn idea what she was talking about. 

“Oh! Daniel didn’t tell you,” she bit her lip and leaned in even closer, whispering conspiratorially, _“We’re going out tonight!_ On a date!” 

Johnny feels his eyebrows fly up above his sunglasses. “Oh, yeah?” 

“Yeah, he’s taking me out! I don’t know where yet, I think he wants to surprise me! He’s such a sweetheart, and you know I told him if it was too soon considering his feelings--” 

Tracey blabbers on, and Johnny stops listening and immediately pulls out his phone, a low-level glee strangely mixed with anxiety that makes his fingers shake. _Fucking LaRusso,_ he thinks, _is he givng in already??_

He types, instead: 

_ <Dude, bag-ur-face trace is about to cream her panties shes ready for ur hot date _

The little bubble pops up immediately: 

>> _Shit i forgot i told her we’d get dinner. its NOT a date_

_ >>And also thats really mean _

_ >>Did she say tonight?? _

Johnny looks back up, Tracey was still talking, clutching her purse and grinning dreamily.

_ < 2 nite big boy _

_ < shes happy u r surprising her _

_ <u should take her to golfnstuff _

_ <u can win her a stuffed tiger she can put a bathrobe on and pretend its u _

_ <keep her warm at night_

_ >> gross johnny _

_ >> ugh i dunno maybe its time_

_ <time for what _

_ <also ur daughter and diaz are prolly making out somewhere i cant find them_

_ >> jesus find my daughter johnny _

_ >> also theres leftovers in the fridge you can heat up _

_ >> and we are out of beer_

_ <dude shes still talking_

_ << find sam! Tell miguel he owes me an hr of kata_

_ <gay_

_ <ok _

_ <and thanx ill pick up beer _

Finally the school’s front doors swing open, revealing a chattering Miguel and Sam. Johnny leans past Tracey to catch Miguel’s eye. 

“Ooop!” Tracey follows Johnny’s gaze. “There they are! I bet they got all caught up in the debate drama, huh?” Tracey backs away slightly as Johnny turns the engine over in a smooth rumble. “Hey Johnny you enjoy your ‘singles night’-- but I guess you’re pretty used to that though, huh?” She gives Johnny a parting wink, clicking her tongue. “Bye, kids!”

She waves and walks away as Sam calls shotgun and Miguel flops down in the backseat. Johnny grips the wheel, too shocked to shift the car into gear.

“Dude, Sensei, did Counselor Blatt just lay a sick burn on you??” Miguel leans up over the consul, mouth dropped open. 

Johnny tips his sunglasses back down into place. 

“Shut up, Diaz. You owe LaRusso an hour of kata tonight.” 

“But I have homework--”

“Too bad.” And before he has to ask, Sam opens the CD book and slots in _American Fool_ and turns the volume up, ‘ _Hurts So Good’_ drowning out Miguel’s whining voice. The Cougar roared. 

“Nice work, Miss LaRusso!” Johnny yells over the music, shifts into drive, and peels out loudly as Tracey was slotting her key into her PT Cruiser. She drops her bag, pinching her fingers over her ears. 

Their eyes meet and she glares at him all the way out of the parking lot. 

***

Daniel walked into the house, threw his keys down, and headed down the hall to his room. 

It really should be a surprising sight to walk into his room and find Johnny elbow-deep in his closet. He’s not sure what it says about his life that not only does this _not_ surprise him, but it isn’t even the first time it’s happened.

“Oh, _what_ are you doing, get out of my closet!” Daniel doesn’t bother to try and make him, instead he collapses back on the bed and throws an arm over his eyes, exhausted. Fridays were always long, three classes over the afternoon. Which didn’t sound like much but the little kids were monsters.

Johnny turns. “You have to dump this bitch. But I want you to wine and dine her first so it hurts.”

Daniel sits up on his elbows. “The fuck are you talking about? And don’t call her that, she’s really nice. She did a lot for Sam.” 

“How about this?” Johnny holds out a blue tropical print short-sleeve. “Oh, fuck that’s bad, why do you even have this?”

Daniel stands and swipes the shirt back.“That was Mr. Miyagi’s, and it’s great. Hey, put those down--” 

Daniel reaches in vain but Johnnys already opened his dresser drawer and pulled out a couple of black and navy bow-ties. He chuckles in delight, _“ohmygod,_ who are you, Bill Nye?? Or are you planning on taking your daughter to the prom?” 

_“Occasionally,”_ Daniel snaps, grabbing the ties and shoving them back into the drawer, “I, unlike you, have the need to appropriately dress for a formal event.” 

“Bow ties only look good on black guys and little kids.” Johnny grabbed the hawaiian shirt and hung it back in completely the wrong place, and continued flipping. He’s wearing his usual faded jeans and a thinning Van Halen t-shirt. No socks or shoes.

“I like to be able to un-tie them later,” Daniel murmurs, sitting back down. He stares at Johnny’s bare feet. “You know, walk around like Tony Bennent after a show...” Daniel trails off, unsure why he’d confided this embarrassing thought. 

Johnny pulled out a black longsleeve and threw it at his chest. “Even you can’t screw up black, Danielle. And Tony Bennent was the discount version of Sinatra.” 

Daniel makes a wounded sound, picking the shirt off his chest. “So why the scheme, again?” 

Johnny leans to peek out the bedroom door, confirming no teenagers in sight, and half-closes it. He turns back to Daniel, eyes a little manic.

“You gotta dump Tracey. Like... _devastate_ her.” 

“I’m not _dumping_ her, because it’s not a date. We’re just grabbing dinner.” 

“You can’t just ‘grab dinner’ with a woman who wants to collect your sweaty socks and bottle them into a perfume to spray down her pillow every night.” 

“Johnny, I don’t even know where to start with that--” 

“She’s been obsessed with you since high school, you know she used to sharpie your name all over her math book--” 

“Wait, _what?”_

 _“Tracey Ann LaRusso, Tracey Ann LaRusso,”_ Johnny mimes scribbling words in the air, “all over her the inside cover of her book, she even colored in the hearts with pink highlighter--”

“How do you even know that?” 

“Everybody knew that,” Johnny coughed evasively.

“She was two grades below us, nobody gave a shit about her. Or _me,_ for that matter.” 

“Whatever, Danielle, people talk.” 

Daniel frowns, shaking his head, but lets it go. “What’d she ever do to you, anyway?” 

“I don’t like her. She’s always skulking around you like a vulture. She’s waiting for a weak moment, LaRusso--” 

“To do what exactly?” 

“To lure you in and kick me out of my lease here. She’ll probably move her dollhouse collection into Robby’s room.”

“Not like you ever signed a lease.” Daniel rolls his eyes. 

_“Yeah,_ exactly, and it didn’t work so well the last time. I’m trying to be proactive.” 

“So you’re asking me to buy her dinner, seduce her, and then dump her in an upsetting manner.”

“Yes.” 

“You’re fucked up, Johnny.” 

“Just wear the shirt and give her the puppy dog eyes-- and do something with your hair, it looks stupid.”

“Get out of my room,” Daniel stands and pushes Johnny from the room, really trying very hard not to laugh. Johnny Lawrence was a dick, yes. But he was also pretty funny, once you got to know him.

 _“What’s for dinner, again?”_ Johnny called, his voice muffled through the closed door.

***

_“Hey Johnny you enjoy your ‘singles night’-- but I guess you’re pretty used to that though, huh?”_

_I guess you’re pretty used to that though, huh?_

Johnny grabbed his phone for the tenth time in as many minutes. It was almost eleven o’clock, no word from LaRusso. He can’t get Tracey Blatt’s annoying, bleaty voice out of his head. He realizes now, how ill-thought out his plan had been. LaRusso was a man. Like any man, he could be led around by the nose with the lure of one simple thing, the thing that even a stupid cow like Tracey was capable of dangling. Maybe LaRusso wouldn’t be strong enough to resist, maybe she actually looked half-decent without her stupid glasses on, maybe LaRusso would come back and tell Johnny to pack all his shit up and maybe, maybe _right now--_

“You think he’s going to sleep with her?” 

Johnny flinches, but Sam’s crass tone isn’t directed at him. She’s curled up in the overstuffed chair with her laptop, looking over at Robby on the couch.

Robby huffs seriously. “Sam. Why would you think that.” 

_Because eleven o’clock is a little late for korean fusion,_ Johnny thinks.

“Because it doesn't take four hours to eat bulgogi.” Sam snaps. Smart girl.

“They’re probably just getting an after dinner drink or something,” Robby frowned, but there was a little doubt creeping into his voice. “And he wouldn’t do that.” 

There’s an awkward silence. Sam chews on her bottom lip. She says, quietly. “You think a year’s enough?”

Robby’s mouth hangs open.

“I just,” she sets her laptop aside. Johnny’s not sure if he's supposed to pretend like he’s not listening. “I know Mom would want him to move on. But...” Sam’s voice gets a little shaky. 

“It’s okay, Sam, I mean I dont think he’s actually--” 

“I mean she’s not even pretty!” Sam snaps. 

Awkward silence. It should be an unfair statement. But. Johnny has to keep from actually nodding in agreement.

“I mean, that’s...that’s not the point. I don’t...I’m not saying that--” 

Robby lowers his computer screen. “You don't have to explain. It’s normal to not want your Dad to...like--” 

“--but he should, he should move on, and I’m not cool with it which is really, really shitty of me--” she sighs, watery eyes. 

And then she does the worst thing, looks up, right at Johnny. “I dunno. Johnny, what do you think?” 

“What?"Oh dear God.

She sniffs. “Am I being selfish? I dunno, I just...I kind of like what we have here.” She looks between Robby and Johnny. “I mean, this is a family. I don’t know why he would think _Counselor Blatt_ would be any better than what we already have--”

The room suddenly lit up with dings and bright screens, three phones and two laptops chirping cheerfully. Johnny gets LaRusso’s message on the group text chain:

_ >> headed back, sam and robby u guys should be going to bed! _

He gets another, just to him, in response to the last message he’d sent around nine thirty, _‘if she asks u to play Misty get out as fast as u can’_

_ >> please tell me you didn’t drink all the beer yet _

_ < there are 19 coors here w ur name on them _

_ >> you drank five beers _

_ < sam drank four_

_ >> fuck you _

_ < _😘

 _ < did u _ 🍆 _her_

_ >> u have to stop with the emoji thing _

_ < _👉👌

< 🙈

 _ < _🐣

_ >> please stop _

_ < are u texting and driving danielle?? _

_ >> haven’t started the car yet _

_ < are u drunk?? _

_ < did u dump her ass?? _

Daniel doesn’t answer back. Johnny banishes Sam and Robby upstairs to their rooms, cracks another beer, and waits. 

***

Daniel makes it home, miraculously. It was one of those drives that starts safely enough-- but five minutes down the pavement the world warps with the slow dawning reevaluation of sobriety. He grips the wheel tightly and keeps a close watch on the speedometer, eyes pulled unnaturally wide. 

Now, he sits in the driveway with the car turned off, his forehead hot and pounding, pressed into the steering wheel. 

His head is still spinning, replaying vivid images from the last disastrous hour on loop. Too many drinks, driving Tracey back home, the cloying smell of her perfume as she leaned over and pressed her mouth to his. He doesn’t know why he didn’t push her away, why he didn’t do anything at all except open his mouth and follow along at a numb, delayed lag. His body had responded with a base, robotic compliance, lifting his hips when she reached for his belt, knees pressed wide against the console and the driver’s side door. It plays out hazy and strange and at a distance, the way people described dying on the operating table, floating around until they’re pulled back into their bodies, almost against their will. 

He watches the top of her head with dread fascination until he’s pulled back, a low familiar gut punch he hasn’t felt in over a year. 

He didn’t feel good, or sated, or relieved. It must show clearly on his face because she stammers in reassuring words he can’t hear, apologies maybe, wiping her thumbs wetly across his face (he must have been crying, he thinks). 

He somehow gets her out of the car and manages to text Johnny and the kids. He pulls away from the curb and nearly turns the wrong way on a one-way street. 

The porch light is on and Johnny’s in a t-shirt and boxers, bare feet up on the coffee table. The TV is muted over a bright, garish commercial about laundry detergent, and all he can think, all he can think is _I had a son and now I don’t, he’s gone and I’ll never, ever, ever see him again_ and _I had a wife and now I don’t because she’s dead, she’s dead and gone forever_ and this is the horrible, dark tunnel he’s slipping down and it’s like he’s back, curled over in the hospital chair again, he’s back like no time has passed at all, pulled back through time and it was nothing, nothing--

Johnny calls out a greeting, something casual and banal and friendly, but everything is a little underwater. Johnny’s legs swing around and he’s in front of Daniel with a concerned look. 

“Are you okay, man?” 

Daniel nods and sits down and stares through the TV and tries to even his breathing, but his chest is heaving open and shuddering down. _I had a son, I had a wife,_ he thinks, _and now I don’t._

_I had a son._

“LaRusso--” 

_I had a son and now he’s gone._

“Daniel,” Johnny shifts closer, Daniel can smell beer and popcorn and the spicy, cheap shampoo Johnny buys from Walgreens. “Daniel,” he mutters, “you gotta calm down. Breathe like Miyagi taught you, c’mon.”

Daniel finds he couldn’t speak if he wanted to, he’s hostage to his reeling dark thoughts and his shuddering body. He wants to die. 

“C’mon, LaRusso, with me, breathe with me,” Johnny holds his shoulders, looks into his eyes and he sucks air IN and OUT, and the walls start to let up a little and his vision clears. 

His breathing smooths out and slows down, he’s exhausted and embarrassed. And still drunk. Johnny’s thumbs wipe across his face like Tracey’s had earlier, but Johnny’s hands are strong and warm, and he doesn’t mind them so much. 

“Thanks,” he says weakly, and he might die of embarrassment. He grabs Johnny’s wrists and pushes gently away. Johnny leans back, just a little, but he doesn’t go away. 

“It was that bad, huh?” 

Daniel huffs softly, fingers still loosely circled around Johnny’s wrists. “Yeah,” he swallows. 

“What, um.” Johnny turns his hands over, holding Daniel’s. “What happened?” 

“I let her...” Daniel shakes his head, throat tightening in on itself. “She. She just. She wanted to, and I...just watched her--” 

“Hey, man, you don’t have to tell me--” Johnny’s voice sounds a little panicky, and Daniel realizes he was still crying. 

“I just sat there, in the car,” his voice was wrecked. “And I just watched. It wasn’t...even good...and I...I just...--” 

“Daniel, man, it’s okay man,” Johnny’s even closer now, almost nose to nose. His hands are back on Daniel’s shoulders, up around his jaw, the whole room is spinning. He feels so weak, his chest is still pushing air in and out, but his voice is still just out of reach, just beyond his fingertips. 

“I,” he breathes, finally, eyes flicking back up to Johnny, and a couple of tears shake loose. “I just. I miss my wife. I miss my son.” 

Daniel floats in the dark room and the kaleidoscopic wash of the muted television, head spinning. His forehead is resting on the soft-worn cotton of Johnny’s t-shirt covered shoulder. He’s so dizzy, and so sad, and Johnny’s shoulder is warm and steady. 

He won’t remember in the morning, but Johnny pulls him up by one arm, wrapping Daniel’s weight around his neck, supporting him with an arm around Daniel’s waist, and he walks him back to his room. 

But Johnny will remember. 

Johnny lays him down on top of the covers, takes his shoes off. He finds an extra blanket in the hall closet and lays it over his chest and shoulders, makes sure it covers his feet. He goes to the kitchen and fills up a glass and sets it on Daniel’s bed stand. 

He sits, and watches him. Makes sure he keeps breathing. He reaches out and pushes back the thick dark hair, wipes a thumb across his wet cheekbones. Rests a hand on his shoulder for a few minutes, he’s not sure how long. A while, anyway. 

He closes the door softly shut and shuts the TV off, clears the dishes from the coffee table and loads up the dishwasher. He wipes the counter down clean. 

He stands in the quiet, dark kitchen, with hot, soap-raw hands. He tries to think what Bobby would do, what a decent person would do. Tries to remember the longing of a broken heart. The years after his mother had died. The night he’d found Robby in LaRusso’s home dojo, fists raised and fear in his eyes. The night Kreese had taken Cobra Kai, plucked it out of Johnny's slow, clumsy fingers, the thing he’d poured his heart and soul into for the past year. Gone. 

Alone again.

He heads back to his own room again, but stops at LaRusso’s door. He puts his hand on the knob and follows his feet inside the dark room, and he pulls up the covers and slides in next to Daniel. Daniel mumbles in his drunk, hopefully dreamless sleep, but he turns immediately into Johnny’s chest, fits his nose to tuck down in between Johnny’s neck and shoulder, warm breaths puffing over Johnny’s skin. 

Johnny puts his arm around his ribs, pulls him in. He breathes deeply, and drops down into sleep.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, as always, my Tracey Blatt is lifted with permission and great honor, from libertinepast, from her amazing, hilarious, "Foreigner". The "Bag-Your-Face-Trace" nickname that Johnny unkindly bequeaths, and the "Tracey Ann LaRusso" vandalized textbook, are taken directly from her headcanon. And the name "Tracey" is from her. 
> 
> The character's real first name is allegedly "Rachel" according to the actress Erin Bradley Danger. I just love the nickname headcanon so much, I stuck with Tracey.
> 
> Read LibertinePast's "Foreigner", right here--> https://archiveofourown.org/works/17083685/chapters/40174007


	5. Morning Sickness

***

Daniel sleeps deeply, surfacing periodically and briefly through a brain-deadening fog of alcohol, exhaustion, and the miasma of dreams he will not remember, to move towards a vague warmth.

He keeps the warmth at his back, wrapped around his torso, chases it back down into the strong slow warp of sleep.

There is a dark abyss, a cold void, and he turns from it and into the grey, the blankness, toward something like peace.

***

Tracey wakes up at six-thirty in the morning, and for about twenty solid seconds, she floats in a blissful state of amnesia, a vague blankness where she knows last night should be, and she experiences a curious sort of dread until the memory hits. 

Daniel in the car. Her slow fumbly fingers, the uninhibited courage of alcohol singing through her blood that this was not only the right idea, but the right _time--_ that the years and years of comparing all men to _this one,_ a whole lot of one night jerks and a few achingly boring ones, all with dark hair and dark eyes but none that really measured up-- that those years were _over..._ oh but the feeling had been so perfect and the sensation so sublime. 

_“Shit,”_ Tracey groans, thinking _oh. God. What did she do?_

Her head is light, pounding behind her temples. She sits up and flips back the quilt and the dark purple covers, and holds out her hands to find her fingers shaking slightly. 

“Shit,” she says again, and walks on weak legs over to the bathroom, the cool wood floorboards tilting at an angle like the heaving deck of a ship at sea, almost tripping over the scuffed pair of black open-toed high heels from last night.

Her face is pale, eyes still smudged with mascara and eyeliner. She braces on the white porcelain sink and breathes in and out. She gargles the stale, sour taste from her mouth and splashes water on her face and buries it for too long in a soft bath towel. 

Another flash of memory, his wet cheeks and panicked eyes and her own voice, _It’s okay, it’s okay, we don’t have to, baby we don’t have to--_

Oh God. She had called him ‘baby’. 

Somehow this little misplaced endearment was so much worse than the messy, and undoubtedly terrible, blow job. 

Her chest hurts, squeezing inward with an aching, familiar letdown. The past couple of months with Daniel, counseling Samantha, updating Daniel with phone calls. The occasional drop into her office. The friendly smiles, cheerful texts. She hadn’t realized the full height of her hopes, not until now. 

It was all ruined, now. 

She pads back to the bed with a full glass of water, reaching nervously for her phone. She finds, to both a relief and a disappointment, that Daniel hadn’t texted. 

She flips to her favorites list and presses one of four numbers. A small, compact list containing her boss, her mother, her father, and one more. 

She picks at the quilt comforter, the one her grandmother had made when she was ten, small two-inch squares of lavender and purple floral prints and cream. Some of the squares were coming unstitched. 

The dial tone buzzes monotonously, before clicking through. She can hear a soft sigh, clearing of a throat. 

_“Trace,”_ the voice is rough, sleep tired. _“What’s goin’ on, it’s early--”_

“Hey, siss,” she tries to keep her voice even, trying and failing to fold in a note of chipper cheer. She rests her forehead on her palm, headache still pounding. “I’m, uh...sorry, it’s early, I just--” 

_“Tracey?”_ She can almost see Susan sitting abruptly up, her voice clearing immediately, sharp and alert. _“What’s wrong, are you okay? You don’t sound so good--”_

“Yeah...I’m fine.” Tracey hears the squeak in her voice, the weakening resolve. “I-I just...I had..” her throat is going all tight, and hard to talk around. “A w-weird night--” 

The resolve breaks, and her voice crumbles to tears. 

_“Oh, honey, hun, Tracey it’s okay, hey you’re gonna tell me about it, okay? Hey how about I come over, huh? I’ll make you breakfast, okay?”_

“Y-yeah, okay,” she tries to even her words back out. She wipes at her face, streaks of black mascara on her fingertips. “Thanks, Suse.” 

_“I’ll be there in fifteen, okay?”_ she hears the rustle of jeans being pulled on, the tinkling of car keys. _“Fred’s gotta work on the patio anyway, no excuses today for him, right? Ha! You hear that Freddie?”_

Tracey laughs with her sister’s bright, full laugh. Susan’s always been so much _more_ than Tracey. Brash and bold and loud and warm if you got to know her, and she didn’t take shit from anyone. You could miss Tracey entirely, standing in a room with her, like nothing but a shadow-- Flat Stanley standing sideways, just a thin black line. 

She hears her father’s voice _stand up straight, you can’t go through life with your shoulders slumped like that_ and her mother’s voice _speak up Tracey, we can’t hear you--_

 _“You still there, siss?”_ Susan asks, a little quieter, but not much. 

“Yeah,” Tracey whispers, voice still rough. “I’m still here.” 

_“Good, alright,”_ the door is shutting behind Susan, the dark pink door in the little brick house in Van Nuys, on Lemona Street, with the matching twin lemon trees in the front yard. _“Hey you got any vodka in the house? I’ll bring orange juice!”_

Tracey sniffs and laughs and says yes, she still has a half-empty bottle on top of the fridge. 

***

Morning light peeks in through the cracked blinds. Daniel had replaced the cheap white plastic ones that had come with the house with heavy wooden ones that shadowed the room even late into the morning. Which was a change. He and Amanda had always liked waking up early with the sun. These days, he tries to get all the sleep he can. 

A lot had changed, since the old days. 

He breathes in deeply, mind still a little murky, but without the usual heavy weariness. He blinks his eyes clear and takes another breath. He must have slept well. Really well. 

He looks over at the rumpled sheets on the other half of the bed, the divot in the extra pillow, the slightly cracked open bedroom door. He sits up, notices he was still in last night’s clothes, rumpled slacks and the black shirt Johnny had picked out.

There’s a tall glass of water on his bed stand, three small white tablets of aspirin. 

He frowns, and thinks. 

_***_

Johnny hears the soft click of Daniel’s door open, and the light, almost weightless footsteps sound down the carpeted hallway. He flips the last egg over, trying not to fuck it up, what with the little shiver of nerves shooting down his limbs. 

The little impromptu sleepover didn’t seem as comforting or logical in the clear light of day as it had last night. Now it just seemed a little weird, and a lot invasive. Johnny had slept pretty much like a log, only waking up a couple of times to find Daniel shifting around in his arms, mumbling incoherently. Breathing hotly onto Johnny’s collar bone. Pressing his shoulders back into Johnny’s chest. Cold socked feet dragging against Johnny’s calves. The nice black socks with the gold toes. Soft. 

Johnny had had to extricate himself early, at the first sign of dawn, slipping his numb arm slowly and painstakingly out from under Daniel’s neck. He’d snuck down the hall to the shower, tried to calm himself down with cold water which didn’t work. He’d slammed the water over to hot and pulled one off with his forehead pressed up against his arm, tried to keep his vocal cords open and silent and his thoughts dulled down to nothing but Carmen’s coffee colored eyes and caramel skin, and the relief had washed hot all up and down his spine, down his calves and arms and out to his fingers and toes.

“Aw, fuck--” he grimaces, fucking the eggs up, and turns around with the plate of messy breakfast to see Daniel feebly pull out a stool in front of the breakfast bar. 

“Shoot me, please,” Daniel drops down into the seat, his head tucking down into the crook of his elbow. He had changed out of his date night clothes, now in a faded ‘LaRusso Auto’ t-shirt and basketball shorts. Johnny’s nervousness fades a little at the sight of the outfit, so normal and _so_ Daniel it was ridiculous. 

Johnny sets the plate down as loudly as possible, and taps harshly at a glass of water with Daniel’s fork, a soothing little _TING! TING! TING! TING! TING! TING!_

Daniel lifts his head slightly, swatting weakly, “Jesus, would you cut that out-- where’s the coffee anyways?”

“Morning Danielle, time for your beauty breakfast!” 

“You’re such an asshole.” Daniel grimaces, and Johnny tosses the fork down on the counter. 

“I made you bacon, doofus. You should eat it, soak up some booze.” He turns back to the bubbling coffee maker, the one he’d brought from the apartment because he knew LaRusso would only have his fancy espresso machine and not a regular coffee maker like a decent fucking human being. 

“No way can I eat food right now,” Daniel disappears back into his elbow, his voice muffled-- _“I’ll throw up.”_

“Don’t be such a baby,” Johnny studies him, trying to figure out how much shit-giving was needed for a hangover after such a traumatizing emotional breakdown the night before. Maybe Daniel didn’t even remember last night. 

“How, um...” Johnny waffles after a moment. “How’d you sleep?”

Daniel lifts his head again, frowning a little. “Uhh, good I think. I don’t really...” 

Daniel hedges, his eyes drop down to Johnny’s t-shirt, the same one he’d worn last night, the one Daniel had cried all over. 

“Were you in my bed last night?” 

Johnny’s brain moves very fast. 

“You’re shit in the sack, you know. Didn’t even let me finish.” Johnny shakes his head, shoving three pieces of Daniel’s bacon into his mouth. “Typical man.” 

Daniel rolls his eyes. “Ha, _ha_. I think I’d remember that.” 

“Damn right you would.” 

Daniel groans again, pinching his temples, eyes closed. “Sorry, I probably dragged you in there--” 

“I just wanted to make sure you didn’t choke on your puke.” Johnny clears his throat. 

“Thanks,” Daniel winces. 

“Yeahnoproblem.” Johnny turns, the coffee maker chokes on a stream of air, coughing up the last drips of coffee. He slides his own plate and two cups of coffee across the bar, and walks around to sit next to LaRusso. 

“Did I tell you about...about the--” Daniel’s fingers circle his coffee mug, the clean, blunt fingernails tapping at the hot porcelain. Johnny doesn’t like...notice things like that, like what LaRusso’s hands look like, it’s just that _they’re always right there--_ he talks with his hands and it’s not Johnny’s fault that LaRusso’s always windmilling his hands in everybody’s faces, like a big walking Italian cliche. 

“About Tracey Blatt’s shit blow job?” Johnny snorts, scooping eggs onto his toast. “Yeah.” 

Daniel pales, and looks like he swallowed something he shouldn’t have. “I think I should call her,” he says. 

Johnny stops chewing his toast. “What--why would you do that--” 

“She probably feels as bad as I do, I mean I shouldn’t even have been driving, I put us both in danger, really, and she-- and I mean, who knows, maybe I gave her like a signal or something--” 

Johnny feels his jaw tighten. 

“--you know, it’s just no excuse to be rude. I should at least tell her I had a good time--” 

Johnny slams his fist down, maybe a little harder than he meant to. He turns, glaring daggers at Daniel. 

“What.” Daniel snapped, it was always in the air, with the two of them, they could smell the conflict before it really started. 

“You didn’t have a good time.” 

Daniel’s face screws up, the stool screeches on the tile floor as he turns, squaring up. “How the hell do you know if I had a good time or not?” 

Johnny debates, very briefly, if he should really dig into it. He sees a flash of Tracey’s face in the parking lot, a little flash of triumph, throwing a wink back over her shoulder as she left Johnny with his singleness, his dateless evening. 

“She--” Johnny breathes out through his nose, keeping his voice flat. “She shouldn’t have done that.”

Daniel shakes his head. “I didn’t exactly say no--” 

“You shouldn’t have to!” Johnny hears his fork clatter down. “Your wife--” 

“My wife what, Johnny.” Daniel’s voice goes quiet.

Johnny studies him, tries to pick at the mess of words in his head. “I just....I think she’s been waiting for her moment, is all.” He turns back to his coffee cup, bites down on his tongue. 

“You know,” Daniel rolls his lips between his teeth, sometimes he does that when he thinks something’s funny and he’s trying not to laugh. This isn’t one of those times. He’s choosing his words carefully. “You’ve been a total jerk to her, for no good reason. She’s a sweet woman...and I--” 

“She’s sweet to you because she’s trying to _get you_ , Daniel, you--” 

“ --you know you’re not like this with anybody else! I thought, this year, maybe I was stupid, but I thought you’d changed, but you’re the same, you know somebody moves in on your _property--_ ” 

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” 

“I’m saying you finally settled down a little for the first time in your life, and you _like_ it here-- and Johnny, I like that you’re here too, but things change, and you can’t act like a total fucking lunatic when you think somebody’s threatening that--” 

“So you want me to move out, that’s it--” 

“NO, that’s not what I’m saying, I’m just saying the last time you were acting like this was thirty years ago on a beach and you broke my nose and a perfectly good radio--” 

“Oh, _fuck you_ , that’s not--” They’re both on their feet at his point and Johnny feels...he feels like...fuck. He doesn’t even know, his breath is getting uneven and his heart feels a little weird. 

Daniel must see something because he doesn’t answer back, he only watches Johnny and his eyes get a little softer. “Johnny,” he says, like Johnny was the one crumpled over on the sofa last night, and he doesn’t even really _remember,_ is the thing. 

“You were pretty messed up last night,” he manages, only just, and retreats back around to the kitchen, opening the dishwasher a little forcefully. “That’s all.” 

He can feel Daniel’s eyes on him. 

He hears Daniel sit back down, the soft metallic scrape of his fork on the plate. A quiet minute passes, Johnny throwing silverware like darts into the little plastic basket. 

“Thanks for breakfast.” 

Johnny shuts the dishwasher, jabs his finger unnecessarily hard into the little button. 

“And I...I _don’t_ want you to leave. If that wasn’t clear. I don’t.”

Johnny empties the sink full of water, tossing the drain stop on the counter. He grabs a towel, drying his hands.

“Uhm. The bacon’s great. The, um. One piece...” 

Johnny turns around, leans back against the counter and flips the towel over his shoulder. Daniel’s smiling into his plate, stealing a glance up at Johnny. The mirror reverse of most mornings.

“Whatever,” Johnny grumbles, trying to stay mad. “How’s the coffee? You afraid of a little Folgers?” 

Daniel looks skeptically down at his mug, but reaches down and takes a sip. And immediately screws his whole face up, almost spitting it out. _“The fuck--_ ” he chokes, “Did you put whiskey in my coffee?!” 

Johnny laughs out loud, feeling his chest loosen up. “Hair of the dog, you dweeb.” 

_“Ugh_ , I’m gonna puke, that’s so gross--” 

“Whatever. How’s your headache, asshole?” 

Daniel’s eyebrows quirk up. “Better, actually.” He takes another sip, this time more cautious. “What time is it, anyway?” 

“Almost eleven, you slept in like a normal human being for once.” 

Daniel’s eyes widen. “Shit, Johnny, we’ve got class--” 

“Cancelled for the day,” Johnny basks for a moment in the awed and admiring look from LaRusso. 

_“You,”_ Daniel starts with the slow grin, pointing across the counter. “You’re beautiful, you know that--” 

Johnny balls up the towel and throws it in his face, and walks back around the counter, headed back to his room. He had to get dressed. 

“--I could kiss, you, right on the mouth! Johnny,” Daniel laughs, and some girls might call it _cute._ “Hey, Johnny--” 

“Get your bikini on, Danielle!” Johnny shouts over his shoulder, ducking sideways to avoid the weak attempt at a tackle. “Beach day, Sam and Robby are already there. Pack a cooler. Sandwiches and shit, we’re gonna need snacks.” 

He hears Daniel bitching behind him, something about not wanting to sit in the hot sun all day with a hangover. He would do it, though. Johnny knew how to get Daniel to do pretty much anything he wanted, these days. 

“NO MERCY!” he shouts, slamming the door on LaRusso’s face. 

Because fuck yeah. 

It was beach day.

***

Topanga Canyon Boulevard was a two-lane state highway cut down from the Valley into the Canyon, threading it’s way through the ramshackle hippie holdouts of Lower Topanga, little roadside artists hawking their wares, pottery and windchimes with winking pieces of beach glass and recycled aluminum and copper wire. Then the dense green of the state forest, counting the miles downhill _it’s coming, it’s coming_ and it never gets old, the winding road unfolding like a ball of yarn bouncing down a staircase. And finally, at long last the road makes a last swooping curve to the right and it hits Daniel in the chest every time, little peak of blue at the end of the curve and then _oh, my God, it’s over,_ the sudden strip of opening blue stretching from left to right, all across the horizon. 

It’s right there, the end of the world, the road tumbling to a halt at the Pacific Coast Highway and the ocean and _all of it_ , so different from the slate flat gray of Newark Bay. 

Daniel rolls his window down and lets the salty warm air flood into the car. 

“You look like you’ve never seen a beach before,” Johnny smirks from across the console, wrist settled on the wheel of the Challenger, Blue Oyster Cult turned down to background noise, sunglasses on and wind in his hair, and Daniel thinks, _California boy,_ and he knows even if he lives another thirty years here, in this place he’ll always feel like a transplant, like a carpetbagger next to Johnny Lawrence and his sun-rinsed hair and sandy skin and the ocean in his eyes. He _looked_ like California. 

They spot Sam’s white convertible and park behind it. Daniel grabs the chairs and lets Johnny carry the cooler full of beer and water and sandwiches. Robby and Sam already had an umbrella and some towels out, and they were splashing around in the surf. Daniel spots Moon, Aisha, and a few other kids from the class either stretched out in the sun or in the water. 

Daniel’s hangover is creeping back, his whole body is starting to ache, and his headache is threatening at the back of his head. He tells Johnny as much and eases down into his beach chair, under the shelter of the umbrella. 

“Don’t be such a girl, Danielle!” Johnny calls, and peels off his shirt, tossing it at Daniel’s chest. 

“You need sunscreen, idiot--” Daniel grimaces, throwing Johnny’s shirt over at the empty second chair. Johnny’s skin was that defiant sort of pale, the kind that white kids forced into sun exposure, developing an unnatural tan and a burn resistance that worked okay until you had to pay for it with skin cancer in your fifties.

Johnny waves him off and takes off for Robby and the water, leaving his torn up leather Rainbows in the sand. 

Daniel sighs heavily, watching him go. His eyelids pull heavy, and he stretches out, digging his heels down into the cooler, wet layers of sand. The breeze off the water is a little chilly, and he’s glad he still has his hoody on. The sun ducks briefly behind a cloud and Johnny cuts a white line through the dark teal water. He stands up in the surf, shaking his head, hands wiping water from his face. 

Daniel watches him, thinking of nothing in particular but the hot sun and the cool breeze and the sound of Sam’s laughter across the beach. The dim, tired ache of his body, the fuzzy lull of sleep. The hypnotic sound of the surf washing up against the sand, over, and over, and over again. 

There’s a kid, down the beach. A little chubby for his age, dark hair. He was wearing a t-shirt, kicking sand around with sneakers, looking like he didn’t really want to be there. Sometimes Daniel worries he’s forgetting the sound of their voices, but sometimes they come roaring back, clear as church bells, _Can’t we go home, Dad? The sand’s too hot and the water’s too cold, who invented beaches, anyways..._ and it’s like a mirage, he can almost feel the heat of Amanda’s skin, the smell of her lotion (citrus and jasmine), the dry sound of pages flipping over. She always liked to read mystery novels at the beach.

It’s a dull, tired pain and he stops watching the Anthony look-alike, looks away and tries to breathe in and out, concentrate on the beating of his heart and focus on his breath.

He dozes off. 

***

“Miguel’s here!” Aisha was sitting up, knees framing the lumpy sandcastle she was engineering a moat and drawbridge for. Robby shores up the tower he’d been patting into place, and looks up to see Diaz step out of the passenger door of a huge, rumbling red Ford Bronco. 

“The fuck--” he mutters. “Is that his?” 

Aisha laughs, pushing her sunglasses up onto her head. “Nah, Bert just got it. Birthday present.” 

“He got a brand new Bronco for his birthday?!” Robby’s mouth drops open, seeing the little blonde driver walking shoulder to shoulder with Miguel, tossing his keys up into the air. 

Aisha shrugs. “It’s a 2017, I think. Not that new.” 

Robby rolls his eyes internally. Even being best friends with Samantha LaRusso, he would never understand these Encino kids. Sam was okay at keeping a lid on it most of the time, but there were other times her ‘inner rich kid’ was so painfully obvious. He remembers pulling a 55-hour week at the dealership over Winter Break last year, just a couple of months after they’d moved in. Robby’d had to skip a few karate practices, and Sam had asked him, _‘Why don’t you just take the week off? Dad would understand.’_ And he could tell, she hadn’t really understood why he needed the money, why he had to make sure his savings account was there just in case. In case the transmission went out on the Challenger and his Dad needed help. In case the city found out his Dad didn’t have a permit or insurance to be officially teaching karate. In case his Dad got hurt at practice and had to go to the hospital with no insurance. In case things didn’t work out here, in this little makeshift family, and they had to move out and come up with a security deposit and first month’s rent. 

Miguel and Bert amble over, each of them holding an oversized styrofoam cup from Sonic. 

“Hey, guys!” Sam splashes up the beach, skin glistening, radiant as always. She looks from Miguel to Bert, and back again. She was wearing a floral printed bikini, but quickly tip-toed over the hot sand to grab a sarong and tie it around her waist, partially hiding the thick, white scar down that ran from her left hip down to her knee. 

Moon followed in a much tinier bikini, sunglasses on, her still dry hair tied up in a messy bun on top of her head. Bert gulped heavily. “Hey, guys, what’s up! Bert, _ohmygod,_ is that yours?”

“Yep,” he breathed seriously, in a voice a little lower than his normal speaking voice. “It’s turbo-charged.” 

Miguel snorted, briefly making eye-contact with Robby. That was one thing they had in common-- having to be the poor kids in the group. Well okay it wasn’t the only thing, but it was the one thing that didn’t make Robby still want to punch him sometimes. 

“Oh, good, you brought your grandma?” Sam asked brightly, peering over Miguel’s shoulder. 

Robby followed Sam’s gaze, Rosa was slowly picking her way across the sand with a beach chair, toward where Mr. LaRusso was still stretched out under the umbrella. Robby could see his Dad coming out of the water after his swim, heading the same way. 

“Oh, yeah...” Miguel rubbed the back of his neck, a little self-conscious. “You know, Mom’s at work, I didn’t want to leave her there by herself, and she doesn't get out much...” 

“I think it’s _awesome_ you brought her.” Sam was beaming, and Robby could see the effect it had on Miguel, his cheeks blushing red. 

“Oh, _ah..._ you know, it’s nothing. Just...trying to be a good grandson, I guess--”

“What are you guys drinking?” Robby interrupted, clearing his throat. 

Bert sloshed his cup and wiggled his eyebrows. “Oh, you know, we might have...added a little something--” 

“Oh, you _bad boys!”_ Moon giggled, and leaned over to take a long sip from Bert’s straw. Bert’s mouth dropped open, and even through his clip-on sunglasses Robby could tell exactly where his eyes were. 

Aisha stood, brushing sand from the sheer coverup tied around her waist, and motioned over to Miguel’s. “Hope you brought enough from the class, Diaz...” 

Miguel handed his drink on over. “Yeah, we’ve got a few beers in the car, too, just. You know. Dunno how Sensei and Mr. LaRusso will feel...”

Bert scoffed. “You know Sensei has a least a six-pack in that cooler. And that’s just for _him_ \--” 

“And my Dad is _super_ hungover.” 

Everyone turned to look at Sam. Moon spoke for everyone, _“Ohmygod what,_ Sam, your Dad was _drunk_ last night??” 

“He party a little too hard with Sensei?” Aisha laughed. 

Robby kept quiet, but looked back over his shoulder. His Dad was sitting, arms on his knees, in his chair. He and Mr. LaRusso were both turned toward Rosa, talking while she was digging into a giant beach bag.

“No,” Sam frowned, crossed her arms across her ribs, squinting up the beach. “He was on a _date_ last night.” 

_“Oh--”_ Aisha purses her lips. “Um. That’s...” 

“Weird. That’s really weird for you...right?” Moon tipped her glasses up, staring at Sam. _“Ohmygod,_ he didn’t like...bring somebody home??” 

_“Ew,_ no!” Sam shook her head, turning away from the chairs and umbrellas up the beach. “He wouldn’t do that. Not with Johnny and us in the house.” 

Miguel hums curiously. “Who’d he go out with? Was it like...a lady? Or...” 

Robby rolled his eyes. Jesus Christ this kid had no subtlety. 

“Whoa, your Dad’s like, bi? Sam that’s so cool--” Moon could be so clueless. 

_“No,_ I mean...I don’t think... _ugh_ I don’t want to think about my Dad like that. No, it was Counsellor Blatt.” 

Bert snorts some of his vodka limeade out his nose. 

“NO...” Aisha’s face is a mask of horror. “From school?? God, he could do so much better. I mean your Mom was like--” 

She stops, and the group finally realizes what Robby had known this whole time, because he’s a decent fucking person, that you probably shouldn’t be talking about Sam’s Dad’s sex life when the _reason_ for the conversation had only died a year ago.

“Shit, Sam, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have--” 

“No, it’s fine.” Sam won’t look at Robby. “She’s nothing like my Mom.” 

An awkward silence falls. Miguel tentatively puts an arm around Sam, and she leans into his side. Robby feels a hot pang of jealousy, and finds he has little interest in hanging around anymore. 

Moon finally claps her hands together. “Who wants to go swim?! The water is like, so perfect.” 

Bert heaves his drink into Robby’s chest and nearly knocks his glasses off pulling his hoody up and over his head. Aisha rolls her eyes but unties her wrap from her waist to follow. 

“I’ve got a beach ball.” Miguel shrugs. Sam smiles up at him, and nods. They set off toward Bert’s car, Sam hanging onto Miguel’s elbow. 

Robby dumps the styrofoam cup in the nearest trash can, and decides to go explore the opposite side of the beach. 

***

_Fuck,_ Johnny thinks, peering at the backs of his forearms. LaRusso was right. He should have put on sunscreen. It didn’t look so bad now, but Johnny knew from experience it would be bright red by the time they got home. 

LaRusso and Rosa were sitting under the umbrellas up the beach, and Johnny sees Robby down the beach aways, throwing rocks into the surf. 

He also sees Diaz and Sam walking arm-in-arm back out to the water, and can take a pretty good guess at the reason for the dejected slump of Robby’s shoulders. 

“Hey,” Johnny approaches cautiously. “I got a frisbee in the car, you wanna toss it around?” 

“Oh, hey Dad.” Robby turns a rock over in his hands, then crouches to toss it into the water, skipping twice.

“We could go rent some boards,” Johnny comments, looking off to the West at the sandy point, just at the base of Topanga Creek. “It’s breaking out there.” 

Robby shrugs, dipping back down into the sand. “I guess.” 

Johnny clicks his tongue, nods. He was so shitty at this kind of thing.

“Didn’t feel like hanging out with the others, huh?” 

Robby crouches to pick up a shell, a pretty, pink-striped scallop. He turns to look back down the beach again. The kids were all in the water now, tossing the ball back and forth. 

“Nah,” Robby pockets the shell, continues picking through the sand. “Seems like they’re doing okay without me.” 

“Yeah,” Johnny nods. “You getting sick of the puppy eyes, huh? Diaz and Sam?” 

Robby drops his mouth a little, but squints up at Johnny. “That obvious?” 

Johnny laughs, drops down to sit in the sand.

“It’s...it’s not what it looks like.” Robby sits back, turning a flat black stone over in his fingers. “Sam and I are friends. I’m...I haven’t wanted more than that since before the accident, you know. It’s not-- she’s basically like my sister, I guess. I mean she’s beautiful...but. I could never...but it’s just--I dunno what I’m saying. I sound like an idiot.” 

“No you don’t.” 

He frowns, sighs. Johnny waits. 

“I guess...It’s stupid. And selfish. But I guess I felt like protecting her is my job.” Robby keeps his eyes down, turning the little stone over. He looks up to where Sam and Miguel were tossing a beach ball back and forth in the water. 

“But-- I can’t help it. If he hurts her, or something happens to her...” He breaks off. 

“Look. Even if Diaz’s dreams come true and they start their little Romeo and Juliet thing...chances are, it’s not gonna work out. Usually high school romance isn’t the real thing.” He swallows, pictures Ali in her cheerleading outfit, green pom-poms and the way her nose had wrinkled up when she laughed. “You guys have something better. That’s not going anywhere.”

Robby kicks out his foot. “You said it yourself. People grow apart.”

“You’ve been there for her. She knows it. She’s not gonna forget that.” 

Robby looks back out. “I guess. I dunno, Sam’s talking about out of state for school. She said something like she could even stay with Mr. LaRusso’s mom back in New Jersey and go to an East Coast school.” 

“You think she’d leave her Dad like that?” Johnny feels a little nauseous. 

He shrugs. “I dunno. I mean if she did that do you think he’d even stay? I mean what’s keeping him here besides her? _Us?”_ Robby snorts, and tosses the smooth little stone out to sea. Robby pushes himself up to stand, brushing sand from his trunks.

Johnny realized just how little he’d thought about the near future, about the unofficial nature of the dojo, about the lack of a concrete lease. About the impending consequences of graduation-- the kids off to college, noone in the house except him and LaRusso, and what was that? About how Daniel had been slowly extricating himself from the dealership, cutting all ties except the official, black and white ones, the financial. A title and a seat on the board-- the freedom to go anywhere and do anything. 

Johnny’s stomach doubles over inside, and Robby grabs for his elbow. “Dad-- are you okay? You don't look so good...you look pretty red, actually, maybe we should go sit down in the shade--” 

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” Robby offers a hand, helps pull him to his feet. 

He wraps an arm around his son’s shoulders, and Robby leans back in, a little half hug, and they set off for the shelter of umbrellas together. 

“Dad?” Robby asks, voice a little quieter, tentative. 

“Yeah?” 

“Do you...ever feel the way I feel about protecting Sam? Like with Mr. LaRusso?”

Johnny feels a little light-headed, a little pressure squeezing in on his chest, and he looks down at his kid. “Yeah,” he nods.

***

Daniel wakes up still under the umbrella to find Rosa Diaz struggling to unfold a beach chair. She was dressed in a bathing suit, a wide brim hat, and large red plastic sunglasses.

“Oh, hey, let me help with that--” 

She smiles with a _gracias_ and lets him unfold the stiff aluminum joints. They finally sit, and Rosa arranges her things, a large tote-bag, a brightly colored lightweight blanket, a bottle of water. She opens a small case from her bag, not unlike an eyeglass case.

“Want some?” she asks, holding out a small paper joint and a lighter. 

Daniel politely declines. He and Amanda had smoked a little in the early days. Amanda always had fun, but Daniel had only stayed glued to the couch, trapped in a dizzying spiral of paranoia and anxiety. 

“You like teach with Johnny?” She lights up, blowing white smoke into the air.

“Yeah, it’s good. We work very well together....um. _Trabajo...bien.”_

She smiles, _“Bien, hablas español!”_

“Ah...no. Only a little. _Un poco...”_

 _“Vives con él?”_ She reads Daniel’s confused expression. “Ahhh...you live with him, _sí?_ With Johnny. _”_

“Yeah, sí” he nods.

“You like it?”

“It’s nice. You know, Sam likes him, and it’s great having Robby around.”

 _“Eso pensé. Le diré a Carmen que tenía razón. No más citas con Johnny.”_ She smiles. _“No está disponible!”_

Daniel frowns, confused. “Uh, yeah...” 

“Because...” she frowns, thinking. “You are... how I say? _Novios? Amigos especiales?”_

Daniel smiles, thinking it had been a long time since he could say he had a best friend, not even close. Ali, and Jessica, Kumiko and Amanda. He remembers Amanda joking, _you can’t have close friends, Daniel. You’d only want to marry them._

But with Johnny there was no doubt. He’d never had a friend like Johnny. 

_“Sí_ ,” he nods. “ _Amigos especiales_ .” 

She laughs, _“Ya lo veo._ Look how you smile! Very pretty.” 

“Gracias,” Daniel says. “You have a pretty smile, too!” 

She laughs, taking another toke, and they sit in pleasant silence. She points out to the beach, to where the kids were tossing a beach ball around in the water. _“Mira-- Miguel y tu Samantha. La ama mucho._ Also very special.” 

“Uh huh.” Daniel agrees with a skeptical frown. “I can see that.” 

_“No te preocupes._ Miguel is a good boy. _Buen chico._ He...respect the girls.” She nods once, emphatically. _“Son amigos especiales.”_

Daniel watches as Sam slips a little in the waves, and Miguel helps her up by the elbow, both smiling and laughing, the sun on the water sparkling around them like little jewels. 

“Right,” he murmurs under his breath. “Just friends.” 

***

Johnny and Robby reach the shelter of umbrellas.

 _"Ay, papi, tu piel está como un tomate!”_ Rosa chuckles merrily, pointing at Johnny’s pink shoulders, and you didn’t have to know Spanish to figure out what she was talking about.

“I’m fine, I’m _fine--”_ Johnny sits down, waving off LaRusso who was already nagging at him, _oh my God Johnny I told you to wear sunscreen_ blah blah blah blah _._

Daniel cracks open a cold bottle of water, pushing it into Johnny’s fingers. “Here, you’re probably dehydrated--” 

“I’m fine, LaRusso, quit fussing.” 

Rosa was still laughing at him from her chair, and even Robby was trying to bite back a smile. 

Daniel sighs, digging through the bag full of towels. “You’ve probably got sun poisoning, idiot. Hold on, I brought some aloe vera--” 

“I hate that stuff, it makes your skin all sticky.” Johnny grimaces, finally taking a drink of water.

“Well you have to put something on. And we have to get you out of the sun.” 

“I _am_ out of the sun--” 

“Like, in the house, idiot.” 

_“You’re_ in the house, idiot--” Johnny chuckles, feeling dizzy. He thinks he might throw up.

“Are you delusional?” LaRusso puts his hand up to Johnny’s forehead. “Jesus, your skin is on fire--” 

Rosa suddenly pushes her way over, a bottle of something in her hand. She clucks at Daniel to move and crouches in front of Johnny. “ _Niño estúpido, ven aquí.”_ She squirts some of the stuff into her hands and promptly starts slathering it all over Johnny’s chest. 

“Easy on the goods, _yaya_ ,” Johnny laughs, then winces. His skin really did hurt.

 _“Date la vuelta!”_ she orders, motioning with her fingers, then physically grabs Johnny’s shoulders to turn him around. 

_“Ow!”_ he yelps. She gets his back covered, and then shoves the bottle in Johnny’s hand. It was some kind of after-sun oil, and it cooled his skin with the breeze off the water. It smelled like coconuts.

“Now, put on clothes,” Rosa was back, gesturing at him. _“Dónde está tu camisa?”_

“What?” Johnny squinted. 

“Shirt, your shirt!” Rosa frowned. _“Para proteger tu piel._ To protect!”

“Oh,” Johnny looked hazily around. 

“Here it is--” Robby pulled Johnny’s t-shirt from the sand behind his chair, shaking it off.

 _“Nonono. Con de manga larga,”_ she gestured down her arms again. “Sleeves!” 

“This is fine,” Johnny shakes his head. “Robby, gimme that-- hey, _ow!”_

“Just put this on,” Daniel’s voice was muffled behind the shirt he was shoving over Johnny’s head, the material was soft but still scraped painfully across his nose and cheeks. 

“Easy, _jesus--”_

“Sorry, just.” Daniel sighed. “Let’s just get you in the car. You look ridiculous.” 

“Says the guy with no shirt on,” Johnny tried to laugh, but his face was starting to feel like it was on fire.

Daniel reached over to pull the hoody gently down over Johnny’s waist and down his arms. The oily stuff was sticking a little to the material. 

“How does this even fit?” Johnny looked down at himself and the stretchy, soft material. “Aren’t you like a boys’ extra-small?” 

“Okay, let’s go- _gracias, Rosa.”_ Daniel grabbed Johnny’s hand, and wrapped an arm around his waist, trying to avoid the burned skin around his ribs. “You need to lay off the cheeseburgers, fatty-- hey, get your sandals on.” 

Rosa waved, still laughing, and Johnny was pretty sure she’d taken a picture with her phone.

“You might try doing some actual pushups once in a while, you weakling.” Johnny winced, and stopped. “I can walk by myself, I’m not gonna pass out or anything.” 

“You sure?” Daniel backed off, only a little. 

_“Yes,_ LaRusso. Make yourself useful and go start the air-conditioning. Crack me open a beer while you’re at it.” 

“No more beer. And Robby’s already starting the car.” 

“Well just--” Johnny waved vaguely up the beach. “Go, or something. You’re hovering.” 

“Fine. I’ll...go get the chairs. And the cooler...” Daniel mumbled to himself, finally walking off.

Johnny squinted hazily up the beach, the sun beating hot on his forehead. He was suddenly glad to have Daniel’s hoody. 

“Stupid LaRusso,” he muttered. “Stupid beach day.” 

He finally reached the car and Robby shut the door on him, and angled the air-conditioning vents to blast cold air across his face. LaRusso finally got back, giving Robby last instructions _‘Watch Sam, okay? Make sure nobody gets behind the wheel that shouldn’t, I saw those ‘cokes’ that Miguel was carrying around...’_

Johnny smiled, sitting gingerly back in the seat. “You’re gonna have to move the seat up, shorty.” 

“It’s fine,” Daniel snapped, adjusting the mirrors. “You’re not that much taller than me.” 

Johnny laughed, and finally noticed that LaRusso wasn’t just wearing his bright pink swimming trunks ( _they’re not pink,_ he’d argued earlier _, they’re coral. Like...red-orange. They’re basically orange)._ He was wearing Johnny’s Metallica t-shirt. 

“Hey. You’re wearing my shirt.” 

“You’re wearing my shirt, asshole.” Daniel put his arm behind Johnny’s seat, looking over his shoulder to reverse out of the parking spot. Johnny stared down at his hand on the gear stick. “And drink some more water before you pass out.” 

“Okay,” Johnny said, and drank the rest of the water bottle. He was really too tired to argue any more. He watched through half-closed eyes, the road flashing by, Daniel’s fingers sliding over the steering wheel, the sun off to the West, sinking behind the trees of Topanga Canyon. 

“Hang in there,” Daniel glanced over sympathetically, as if he could read Johnny’s mind.

***

Daniel tested the water with his fingers. Just cooler than luke-warm. Five years ago, a beach outside Galveston, for the car show in Houston. Sam was ten or eleven, eager to start a tan, she’d rushed out to the turquoise Gulf. The water was warmer than in California, saltier, the sand was white powder, and she’d spent all day out there. The sunscreen hadn’t worked, or had washed off too quickly. He remembers her crying in the tub, her bright red skin angry around her purple swimming suit. She was in so much pain, and there was almost nothing he could do about it except dry her off as gently as he could, put layer after layer of aloe vera on. Even Anthony had stopped laughing, and brought her bowls of ice cream and watched Disney movies with her on the couch.

“You want any ice cream, or something?” 

“You trying to make me fat?” Johnny winced, easing down into the cool water, still in his trunks and Daniel’s hoody. “Fat and sunburned, that’s just what I need. Man, this water is _cold--_ ”

“You’ll get used to it. Your skin needs to cool down.” Daniel frowns, feeling the water again. Maybe it was too cold.

“Hm,” Johnny grumbled. “Hey do you ever jack off in here?” 

_“Gross,_ why would I jack off in a jacuzzi?”

Johnny shrugs, his skin was looking even more red against the white porcelain. “Why not. People do that shit in hot tubs--” 

“That’s disgusting. Remind me never to get in a hot tub with you.” 

“You’re missing out.” Johnny closes his eyes. Daniel can tell he’s still very uncomfortable by the set of his shoulders, the tightness in his jaw and around his eyes. 

Daniel sits back against the bathroom wall and pulls out his phone. 

“Who are you texting?” Johnny craned his head, as if he could see through Daniel’s phone.

“None of your business.” 

Tracey hadn’t texted. 

Johnny groans. “Not Bag-face--” 

“Don’t call her that.” Daniel warns. He stares back at the screen, tapping the side of the phone in contemplation. He pulls up a new message, starts to type, _hey how was your day?_

“Just don’t fucking text her dude.”

Daniel ignores him, erases the words. _Hey just want to apologize for last night--_

“You’re apologizing, aren’t you?” 

Daniel glares over the screen. Johnny raises his eyebrows. 

“Don’t do it, man.” 

“Whatever.” Daniel erases the message. Types out, _Hope you had a good day. Sorry if I was no fun last night._ He hesitates, and presses ‘Send’. 

A little bubble pops up a few seconds later: 

_ >> hey there! I had a good day with my sister. _

_(...)_

_ >> i wanted to apologize for last night, i was pretty drunk and felt i took advantage. Hope we can still be friends at least. _

Daniel sighs, already feeling the nerves in his stomach turn over. He knew she was giving him plenty of room to back out, to close the window.

_ > Nothing to apologize for. Glad u had a good day with your sister! Tell susan hi from me next time you see her. _

_ >> already did! she says hello back :) _

Daniel looks up at Johnny to find him watching. “What?” 

“Nothing,” Johnny sighs heavily. “You gonna take her out again?” 

Daniel folds his knees up, bumping the phone against his shin. “I dunno.” He shakes his head. “What’s up with you and Carmen? Rosa kind of mentioned her, but I couldn’t tell what she said.” 

Johnny grunts. “Nothing. She’s done.” 

“Did she actually _say_ that? You guys were doing great--” 

“Apparently I talk about you too much.” 

Daniel’s chin jerks back. _“What?”_

“Yeah.” Johnny snorts, splashing water up onto his face. “She says we should date.” 

“That’s...is she joking? Why would she say that?” 

Johnny sits up. He looks exhausted. “I dunno, man. She’s probably just tired of my shit.” 

Daniel couldn’t help a grin. _“No,”_ he mocks. “You’re kidding.” 

Johnny cracked a small smile. “You’re the only one that can do it, LaRusso. You and Diaz.” 

“Well you can’t date Miguel. Sam wouldn't go for that.” 

“Guess it’s just you and me, then.” Johnny starts to push himself up. “Like old times, huh? Same old.” 

“Yeah, but different.” Daniel stands, hands the towel over, and then reaches for the bottle of aloe vera on the sink. “Okay, King Karate. Shirt off. I’ll get your back but you have to do the rest-- and don’t forget to put it on your face.”

“Yeah, yeah. Be gentle,” he jokes, pulling the wet hoody over his head, and throws it over the side of the tub.

Johnny stands still, letting Daniel rub the sticky green stuff over his upper back, the tops of his shoulders. The hair at the back of his neck is a wet, dark blonde. He leans closer, blowing gently over the heated, aloe-coated skin. Goosebumps erupt in the wake of the cool air. 

Johnny goes suddenly still. 

“Oh,” Daniel stops. The air of the room buzzes. “Sorry. I dunno why I did that.”

“Um. It’s fine. Feels good.” Johnny nods, then turns to grab the bottle. “I think I got it from here.” 

“Yeah,” Daniel clears his throat, watches the door close behind Johnny. 

He washes his hands, drains the tub and grabs his phone. 

_ > Dinner + Salsa Night? You, me, next Friday 8pm? _

He waits, biting his lip. 

_(...)_

_ >> If you will teach me-- absolutely!! _

Daniel throws the phone down, strips his clothes off, and takes a long, hot shower. He leaves Johnny and the kids to fend for themselves for dinner.

He absolutely does not think about anything in the shower. 

Except. 

_Fuck._

***


	6. Sleepless in the Valley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alt Chapter Title: "Moonstruck" 
> 
> "La bella luna! The moon brings the woman to the man. Capice?"

> “That woman didn't leave you, OK. You can't see what you are, and I see everything... You are a wolf!... That woman was a trap for you. She caught you and you couldn't get away. So you, you chewed off your own foot. That was the price you had to pay for your freedom... 
> 
> And now, now you're afraid because you know the big part of you is a wolf that has the courage to bite off its own hand to save itself from the trap of the wrong love. That's why there's been no woman since that wrong woman. OK? You're scared to death of what the wolf will do if you try and make that mistake again!”

> \- _Moonstruck (1987)_

***

**WEDNESDAY**

By Wednesday afternoon, Daniel thinks he might be going insane. 

He hasn’t slept for more than two hours at a time since Friday night, the night he cried on Johnny Lawrence’s shoulder, a thin white _Brown & Son Landscaping _ t-shirt, the night Johnny crawled into his bed and put his arms around him like a human sedative. 

They hadn’t talked about it. Not really. 

Just like they aren’t talking about the little “backrub & blow” thing.

It wasn’t even a big deal. Shouldn’t have been. 

But Daniel has felt the muscles under the skin of Johnny’s shoulders, seen the shiver run through, seen the micromap of his skin change and the hairs stand on end-- and there was something there, something that added up to more than friendly comfort and menthol. 

It’s not like they aren’t _talking_. 

They are.

Just...not about that.

Which is when the insomnia started. Daniel had worked himself up with the smell of aloe vera on his hands, he’d arranged the date with Tracey, skipped dinner, showered, and gone straight to bed. To lay there, totally awake, his head foggy and exhausted and unable to actually sleep.

Johnny sleeps most of the day Sunday, chest down on the bed because his back was the worst. Daniel sneaks into his room, makes sure the water bottle by his bed is full and he isn’t running a deathly fever-- he reaches out a tentative hand to his forehead. The skin was still full of unnatural color, but the worst of the burn starts to fade by that evening. They all sit on the couch and watch ‘Bad News Bears’, and Sam sits between them, head on Daniel’s shoulder. 

Daniel tries to keep his eyes on the movie, but he can’t help glance down at Johnny’s bare feet up on the table. Or notice that at some point he’d stolen back the black stretchy pullover hoody, had been wearing it all day. 

He tries for sleep again that night, dreams vague dreams for a couple of hours about being wrapped in black modal, swimming in the cool, soft material like water. It’s so _strange_ , and he wakes up feeling more exhausted than before.

Monday, Daniel does a load of laundry and finds Johnny’s Metallica t-shirt, the one he’d worn on the drive home from the beach. He throws it in with the rest, doesn’t bother to pluck it from the dryer. He’d give it back at some point.

He tries to go to bed early, right after dinner, but he only ends up staring at the ceiling. He must sleep some, but the drifting time is uncertain and hazy. He wakes up with a headache. 

Tuesday he gets through the youth and intermediate class, somehow, Johnny floating in the background, doing most of the talking. His skin was already turning darker, the angry red color almost a memory. 

Tuesday night, again, he lays in bed wide awake. Which is crazy, because he’s never felt more tired in his life. He can smell _coconut_ \-- maybe on the pillow, or in the sheets, it’s too faint to be sure. It’s just... in the air, hovering just beyond the reach of his nostrils. He finally drifts off, and wakes up at two o’clock thinking Johnny was back in the bed, but it was only the blankets twisted up at his back.

Maybe he’s going crazy.

Wednesday morning, he goes to the dealership and locks himself in the boardroom, going over backlogs of neglected sales reports, accounting, last year’s taxes, all the details dropped after Amanda died. Anoush kicks him out after a few hours-- _Go home,_ he orders, _you look like shit_. 

He comes home and throws his keys on the counter and he freezes in the doorway to his room before he can get his tie off—

Johnny Lawrence was in his bed. Chest down and snoring. 

He closes the door quietly. Sits on the bed and takes his shoes off, his tie and his shirt and his socks, all the way down to an undershirt and boxers. The blinds are closed to the late afternoon sun. He slips under the covers and the coconut smell is everywhere, and salt and aloe vera and cheap shampoo.

He’s still wearing the black hoody.

“‘S the only thing that didn’t hurt to wear,” Johnny mumbles sleepily, as if he could read minds. 

“What are you doing in here?” Daniel yawns, eyelids already heavy. 

“Couldn’t sleep. Your bed’s nicer. ‘S too bright in my room.”

“Hm.” Daniel breathes deeper. “How was class? Sorry I missed.” 

“Was fine. You get your...paperwork done?” 

Daniel hums a yes, and his eyes close fully. “Turns out I’m not crazy.” 

“Bullshit,” Johnny huffs. “Of course you are.” 

“Nah. You were the coconuts.” He’s so warm, and the sheets are so soft. Johnny’s shoulder is right there. Daniel feels his toe brush up against Johnny’s calf and because he’s a good friend, Johnny doesn't flinch away like it was weird or anything.

“You’re fuckin’ crazy, man.” 

Daniel cracks his heavy eyelids, looks over. Johnny’s got his eyes open a little too, blue and tired and smiling. 

“You’ve been in my bed,” Daniel smiles. 

“It’s the best bed.” 

“Sorry about the other night,” Daniel frowns, voice low, near a whisper. “The...blowing on your back thing. That was probably weird.” 

Johnny snorts. “Shit, LaRusso. I was gonna ask you to do it again. ‘S still sore.” 

“Oh,” Daniel blinks. “D’you...” 

“I had Robby help,” Johnny sighs into his pillow.

“Good,” Daniel relaxes again. “Don’t want you sitting there hurt for no reason.” 

“He didn’t blow on it, though.” Johnny’s eyes close. “Should pay you for that shit. $50 bucks an hour and LaRusso’ll rub weird lotion on you and blow all over your skin. ‘S how I get my rocks off these days.” 

Daniel can’t help but laugh, and Johnny just cracks another amused eye open. 

“I’m _so_ fucking tired,” he sighs, and throws an arm over his eyes. 

“Go to sleep, then,” Johnny grumbles. 

He feels himself drop deeper down, and shifts toward the warmth, until he’s pressed all up and down Johnny’s side. 

He sleeps the rest of the afternoon, all through the night, and wakes up about midnight on his side. Moonlight is creeping silver fingers through the blinds, even these thick dark blinds. Johnny’s arm is under his neck, his arm around Daniel’s ribs. He reaches out for the side table, for his phone, and Johnny’s hand unconsciously slips down to his waist. 

He blinks in the dark. There’s a text from Sam: 

_ >> hey hope you are sleeping ok, Robby said you and Johnny were napping-- u need it! don’t worry about dinner we are going out for chinese and a movie, we’ll be back by 11. Love you! _

He eases up, lifting Johnny’s arm out of the way and pads out to the kitchen to find Robby and Sam eating ice cream. Sam hugs him and tells him he looks a million times better and Robby puts a couple scoops in a bowl for him. They talk and tell him about the movie, and school lately.

“Um, Grandma called,” Sam says, her spoon stilling in her bowl. 

“Oh? How’s she doing? Probably pissed I haven’t called.” 

“No, um. Grandma Naomi.” 

“Oh. Okay. What’d she want?” 

“She asked if Robby and I would want to come up North this weekend. For Labor Day. It’s been awhile, I think I should go. And Robby’s never been.” She rolls her lips between her teeth. “It’s really pretty up there.” 

“Um. Yeah, I mean. You should go, if you want. I know they both want to see you.” 

She nods. “Okay. They want to fly us, so. We would leave Friday after school, and get back Monday. And, um. Robby asked Johnny today. He said it was fine with him.” 

“Okay,” he says again, wondering if that was all he was capable of saying. “Well it’s a good idea. They miss you, and it’s harvest time, right?” 

She nodded smiling. She looked over at Robby. “You’ll really like my Mom’s brothers. Uncle David and Uncle Jesse. They’re super cool.”

“I kinda remember them. From the hospital...” Robby trails off. 

“Oh right,” Sam nodded, face slackening a little. “I forgot you met them already.” 

“Allright,” Daniel breathes. “It’s late. You guys go to bed, you got school tomorrow. Math quiz, right?” 

Robby groaned, but said goodnight. Daniel sets the bowls in the sink, picks a container of lo mein from the fridge and throws it in the microwave for a few minutes. He waits in the dark, leaning against the counter, listening to the low hum. 

He pads back down the hall, closing the door quietly. 

Johnny was turned facing away on his side, but he rolls over and cracks an eye open as Daniel sits back down, sets the bowls carefully on the covers to click the lamp on. 

“Whassthat?” Johnny blinks, wincing.

“Figured you’d be starving. We slept through dinner.” Daniel grabs the bowls, sets one nearer to Johnny, and reaches down, pulls the covers back up over his knees. 

Johnny sits up, still blinking slowly. “What timeisit?” 

Johnny never had his phone near. 

“Almost one.” 

“Well, shit. Hand it over, LaRusso--” 

They eat, and Johnny sets his empty bowl on Daniel’s lap and rolls back over for bed. 

Daniel sets the dishes aside, checks his alarm, and clicks the lamp off.

“Oh,” he said, once the dark settled back in. “Sam told me about this weekend. You’re okay letting Robby go?” 

Johnny grunts. “Kid hasn’t been on too many trips. I figure if they’re paying he can knock himself out. He seems excited about it.”

Daniel breaths. “You need to ask Shannon about it?” 

“Fuck no. She hasn’t called in a month.”

Daniel yawns, “That makes it easy.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well. Goodnight.” 

“‘Night, Danielle.” 

Daniel elbows him gently, and thinks that this was the first person in his bed to wish him goodnight since Amanda.

It was sorta fucked up, if he thought about it too hard.

So he doesn’t. 

It’s nice, and the moon has risen enough that the rays pull back from the blinds, back out of the room, leaving it in peaceful, quiet darkness.

He sleeps.

***

**THURSDAY**

Johnny wakes up to the sound Daniel’s phone ringing beside the bed, horribly shrill and cheerful.

“LARUSSO!” he yells, putting a pillow on his head. Daniel doesn’t answer. Probably because he was in the shower. 

Johnny leans over to silence it, but seeing the number and photo flashing on screen, instead disconnects the phone from the charger and presses the little green button to open the call.

 _“Hello,_ Lucille.” Johnny settles back into the pillows, not bothering to hide the grin from his voice.

 _“Oh, good morning!”_ she laughs, voice bright and warm. _“Now wait a minute, you don’t sound like my son!”_

“Yeah, Danny’s in the shower--” he grins, looking back toward the closed bathroom door. Daniel _hated_ being called ‘Danny’ which Johnny only knew because Lucille told him, so it was like this little joke between the two of them.

_“You know if I didn’t know better I’d think something funny was going on, answering each other's phones, you two are so cute, like a little married couple!”_

“Nah, if there was something funny going on I’d be in the shower with him.”

She _laughs,_ she had the best laugh, and it was weird because as different as it was from his own mother’s (light, like little ringing bells, _pretty_ ) it reminded him of her anyway, and so Lucille’s calls always elicited a maternal warmth that made Johnny feel...young. Safe, if he was honest. 

_“Oh, you’re terrible!”_ he can picture her, throwing her arm into the air for emphasis. _“Daniel said you nearly burnt yourself to a crisp! Who didn’t teach you about sunscreen, young man?! Especially with your complexion! I’m like you you know, Daniel gets his skin from his father, he came back from Japan that one summer and he looked like someone had rolled him in brown sugar!”_

Johnny can’t help it, he starts cracking up. _Jesus_ , this was all gold. 

_“Oh, but hey!”_ she interrupts herself. You could let her talk like this for hours. _“How’s Robby doing? Daniel said he’s been quite the little professor!”_

Johnny clicks his tongue, picking at the sheets. “Yeah, he’s just moping I think. Sam’s been spending all her time with Diaz--” 

Lucille hums wisely. _“Ahhh, yes. Young hearts--”_

“I keep telling him he needs more than one friend, you know. He’s either at his desk or the dojo all the time.” 

_“Daniel was like that. He always had a little girlfriend, but he wasn't good with other kids his own age. You know he skipped fourth grade, which I wasn’t sure about because of his size, he was already tiny--”_

“Uh-huh.” 

_“-- and you know but his teachers said he was bored in class, so I didn’t know-- sometimes I regret that but it was after his father died and he was spending a lot of time in his books, and I figured-- if he’s gonna be reading at least it’ll be above grade level--”_

“Right.” Johnny was always torn, Lucille had done this a couple of times, gotten into the really personal stuff. He knows he should probably stop her, or try to guide her to safer topics. But Lucille didn’t seem to have a mechanism to distinguish between what was deeply personal and what was fit for public viewing-- and by the time Johnny realized he was in deep waters, she would have already switched back to everyday banalities. She would jump from her last grocery store run to her dead husband’s last weeks on earth, then back to Daniel’s anxieties about Sam and Robby, and finally leap back to a bewildering comment about _‘that Bruno Mars, I just love him!’_ It was dizzying. 

_“--but it got to the point I didn’t think it was healthy, so that’s when I booted him out of the house! ‘Summer camp for you!’ I said-- HA! And you know he made a couple of little friends, good kids, I always tell him he needs to look them up, I’m sure they’re still in Jersey--”_

“What are you doing? Who are you talking to?” Johnny looks up. Daniel was standing over the bed dripping water onto his shoulders with a towel around his waist. He reaches out, making a grabby hand for the phone.

Johnny ducked back, rolling back across the bed. He held the phone up and to the side, a hand over the receiver. “Lucille wants to know if she can come visit--”

“Johnny, c’mon, gimme the phone--” 

“I told her-- _she can sleep in my bed this time!!”_ Johnny shouts into the speaker, following it even as Daniel ripped the device from his fingers. 

“Why do you encourage this?” Daniel sidesteps Johnny’s fingers trying to grab at his towel, and posts up against the dresser, glaring as he talked. 

“--hilarious, very funny, Ma. You should be a comedian--”

He paused, and Johnny can hear Lucille laughing all the way from the bed. Daniel was making a shoo-ing motion, out to the hallway. _“Get out,”_ he was mouthing, _“I need to get dressed--”_

Johnny hummed, but got out of bed. He wandered up to the dresser, inspecting a bottle of cologne on the dresser top, right next to an old wooden tray of pocket change, a couple of watches, some old tie pins. 

_“What are you doing--”_ Daniel mouthed. Johnny hears Lucille say-- 

_“--he’s been working very hard up here, he’s got a wonderful reference from the dealership--”_

“I wrote him a reference letter to get him the job at that dealership--” Daniel snaps, eyes on Johnny’s fingers on the bottle of cologne. His hair was still wet, but not wet enough to be dripping anymore, but still a deep, gleaming black. Johnny smells soap and aftershave and his fancy shampoo-- something clean, and sandalwood and tea tree oil.

Johnny leans in, cocks his ear at an angle toward the speaker. _“I want you to hear him out, he wants to help--”_

“He wanted to help out last time,” Daniel huffs, a little softer this time, almost like he didn’t want to yell too loud with Johnny’s ear so close. He didn’t try to push Johnny back. 

Johnny uncaps the cologne, holds it up to his nose. Daniel frowns, watching. 

_“Just hear him out, it’s the least you can do for your own cousin.”_

“I gave Anoush hire-fire power. It’ll be up to him.” 

Johnny sprays a little bit on his wrist, rubs them together the way girls in movies do, the way Shannon used to do before going out. “He torched my car,” he murmurs to Daniel, eyes up, voice canted low enough to dodge the phone speaker. 

“He torched Johnny’s car,” Daniel says into the speaker, still looking at Johnny with his forehead all crinkled up. Johnny turns the bottle on himself, gives himself a big spray right in the chest, and hacks out a couple of coughs. 

Daniel snatches the bottle back, sets it back on his dresser. 

_“That was all a big misunderstanding, and things were different-- he was trying to defend you, remember? Mr. Johnny wasn’t your friend back then--”_

Johnny rolls his eyes and shoulders past, feeling the tips of Daniel’s fingers brush against his sleeve on the way out.

“Just tell him to call me, wouldja? I don’t want him just popping in, I tell him that everytime and he just shows up in the middle of dinner--” 

Johnny shuts his door on the way out, walks the few steps to his own room. Before he goes in, he hears Daniel’s voice through the door. 

“Uh, yeah. I’m taking her out tomorrow night.” 

Pause. 

Johnny steps back to Daniel’s door, presses his ear up against it. The smell of the cologne is cloying, everywhere, stinging in his nostrils, his eyes, he can taste it on his tongue.

Daniel’s voice gets quieter. “Dancing, I guess. The same place....yeah.” 

Pause. 

“I’m just...seeing what happens, I guess. I dunno, I--” 

Pause. 

“I know. I’m _fine..._ I-- Really _._ I just need to--” 

Pause. 

“Right. I know. He’s great...I know. _Yes,_ I’ll tell him-- _Ma,_ I gotta go, okay? Just come down, it’s not like you’re working...I’ll take the couch. Or you get a hotel-- Ok, _jeesh_ I wasn’t saying anything. Look, just tell Louie to call me and we’ll see, okay? Okay. I’ll talk to you later.” 

Pause. 

“I love you, too. Uh huh. Okay. Bye.” 

Johnny retreats back to his room, he peels off the black hoody and the cologne is still right there, on the skin of his wrists and his neck. 

He doesn’t take a shower, just throws on jeans and the softest shirt he has, an old _West Valley High Soccer_ shirt, white with the green letters. The cotton is rough on his skin compared to LaRusso’s hoody.

He shrugs on a flannel over the t-shirt, just to have something cover the back of his neck and arms.

He pulls out his phone, checks the time again. 

No class until 3:00.

***

Daniel presses the red button, shutting the connection between himself and his mother, and sets his phone back on top of his dresser, next to the bottle of cologne Johnny had sprayed all over himself. It was still hanging heavy in the air. A Christmas present from Amanda, four or five years ago, he’d barely used it.

Daniel shakes his head, trying to clear it. He pulls on clean boxer briefs, walks back to tug the messy sheets back in place, then over to the other side of the bed to even out them out. He bends over, picks up the extra blanket Johnny had kicked onto the floor. Normally making his bed every morning was a depressingly simple activity. 

He finds a pair of lounge pants and socks twisted up in the sheets, and throws them into the laundry hamper. He punches the pillows back into shape, and there it is again, that phantom scent of coconuts spritzing into the air.

He stands over the bed, skin still damp. “That’s the second time this week I’m washing his clothes,” he sighs out loud, looks up to the ceiling, to nobody. “That can’t be good.” 

***

Johnny finds Carmen in the laundry room of the old apartment complex. 

She is not thrilled to see him. 

“What do you want?” she grimaces, snapping a t-shirt from the dryer, one of Miguel’s, folding it up on her chest before laying it down in the white plastic basket. 

“Hey to you too.” He slouches casually against one of the dryers, rumbling hot at his back. 

Her head falls to one side, eyebrow going up, laying one of _those looks_ on him. He gets them from LaRusso all the time, matter of fact.

“Fine,” he sucks in a breath. “I need a favor.” 

“Oh?” she quirks her eyebrow again. He wonders how she gets them so sharp. “And what’s that.” She snaps another t-shirt into place. 

“I need you to go on a date with me.” 

“ _Que cabrón,_ you must be joking--” she throws a pair of shorts forcefully into the basket. 

“Look, I know I wasn’t the best date--”

“Johnny, you were the _worst_ date I’ve ever gone out with, and I married a man who trafficked cocaine behind my back--”

“Well, okay, you don’t have to exaggerate--”

“It was _terrible.”_ As if to underline her point, a washing machine buzzed right behind Johnny’s ear. 

_“OW--”_

Carmen crossed the room, shouldering Johnny out of the way. 

“Look, it’s not really a date anyway. I just need somebody to go with. It’s ‘Salsa Night’...?” he pitches his voice up, dangling the last words like a tantalizing possibility.

“You _hate_ dancing, Johnny. Last time I had to drag you onto the floor, and you were too drunk to follow my instructions. _Plus,”_ she turns, tipping her chin up, “George asked me out. I said yes.” 

Johnny’s nose wrinkles. _“George--_ from the board?” 

She purses her lips in warning. “Yes, _‘George from the board’._ Is there something wrong with that? Do you have any other suggestions for my dating life, Johnny?”

“Uhhhmm,” he clears his throat. “He’s a nice guy...” 

“You know,” she shakes her head, rolling her lips between her teeth. “I really liked you. My mother likes you. And Miguel _loves_ you. I understand these things don’t always work out-- but you could have told me about Daniel.”

“What about him?”

“That you’re seeing him.”

“WHOA, what?! What are you talking about? He’s my roommate, we’re _friends--”_ His heart picks up odd and unsteady, he tries to breathe in and out to modulate his voice from sounding strange and panicky.

“Mmmhmm.” Carmen shakes her head. “Sure. And he’s your dance instructor. And you can’t stop talking about him over dinner. Typical roommate stuff, huh? How about I go on this date with you if this has absolutely nothing to do with him?” 

Johnny weighs the risk of lying to a Latina woman’s face, and not getting what he wanted. 

“Look. Tracey Blatt is trying to seduce LaRusso, and he’s not thinking straight, and they’re going on this stupid salsa date and I want you to come with me to crash their date. Tomorrow night. It’s not a real date so you don’t have to feel bad about George.” 

She stops pulling clothes from the washer. 

“Johnny. You have serious problems.”

“I know.” 

She turns fully, a hand on her hip. “Why would I help you?? _That’s crazy,_ why don’t you just talk to him?!”

“I’ve tried, he won’t listen to me!” 

“Why do you care?” She throws her arms up. “If you don’t have feelings for him. Why.” 

“I--” he hesitates, wonders how he can put this into words. “I need this. She’s gonna ruin everything.” 

_“Johnny,”_ Carmen covers her face, shaking her head. 

“Please...just. Help me with this, and I’ll never bother you again.” 

She steps closer, dark eyes searching his own. “You need to be honest with yourself why you want to do this.” 

The steady thrum of the dryers gives an unintended dramatic effect to her words. It’s difficult, talking to Carmen. She was beautiful, and something about the discerning way she searched his face reminded him of his mother, the one person he hadn’t ever been able to hide from.

“Look. I’ll...I’ll figure it out from there. I’ll talk to him...” he trails off, not entirely sure what he was promising to do. But not entirely _unsure._

“This is _so stupid..._ ” She drags her hands down her face, groaning. 

“So you’ll do it.” Johnny feels his heart pick up again, stuttering and syncopated. 

_“Sí,”_ she sighs, hands on her hips, eyebrow raised sharply. “But only if I can dance with Daniel. He’s a much better dancer than you. And if you try any bullshit with me again, I will crane kick you. And _not_ in the face.” 

He pulls her into a hug, lifting her briefly off her feet. 

_“Pendejo,”_ she mutters, patting at his back.

***

Louie doesn’t call. 

Instead, Daniel finds him across the breakroom table from Anoush, joking around over a box of donuts and a cardboard jug of coffee from _Red Window,_ Anoush’s favorite. Louie stands despite Anoush’s nervous face (caught out) and pulls Daniel into a hug, all _“Hey cuz! So good to see you, man-- hey, hope it’s okay I dropped in but I wanted to talk to you and Anoush about some business_ \--” 

Daniel pulls Anoush outside, leans in close and hisses his disapproval.

“Why didn’t you call me? _He’s not supposed to be here--”_

“Daniel, relax, he just wanted to drop off his resume, I told him I’d talk to you first.” 

“We’re not talking about it--” he snaps, patience wearing thin. “He blew it last year-- I mean he _literally blew up_ Johnny’s car, I’m not taking him back--” 

Anoush presses his lips into a thin, tight line. 

Anoush...Well. Anoush. What to say about Anoush. He owed him everything.

Daniel had lost it, obviously, for a few months after everything, and was useful to exactly no one at the business. He had tried to come in, a week after the funeral (funerals? He’s always struggled with this), because he just couldn’t do it anymore, sit in his old bedroom while Sam was still in the hospital, walk past Anthony’s gameboy on the table and Amanda’s collection of nail polish sitting quietly in the second-from-the-top bathroom drawer. He couldn’t do it so he got dressed and grabbed his bag with three-week old paperwork and pushed into the front door to nervous, fragile smiles. Anoush had grabbed him from Sheila’s arms, dragged him back into his office (Amanda’s had still been empty, her name plate mounted on the door) and held Daniel by the shoulders and told him, _you’re not ready,_ and told him to _go home--_ told him _we’ve got things under control_ despite the fact that he must have been totally swamped and overwhelmed, covering his and Daniel’s responsibilities, and scrambling to figure out how to replace Amanda’s duties, because _how the hell do you replace Amanda--_

And it hadn’t occurred to Daniel, not for a long time, what Anoush had truly been through. What the loss of Amanda had meant to _him._

Because the last few years before the accident, as CEO Daniel had spent a lot of his time floating at the top, touching bases at all of the branches, not really tied down anywhere-- putting the finishing polish on sales training, lunch with company reps, securing financing, talking with shareholders-- all of the “ten thousand foot view” responsibilities. Which had been necessary-- _“Every army need a General,”_ Anoush used to joke, slapping him on the back. But it was Amanda and Anoush who really greased the wheels of the machine, who answered every phone call and every text and talked the managers down when they were at wit’s end and made sure the nitty gritty _work--_ the everyday trench labor that was necessary to keep it all going-- was done. And they had done that work together. 

Now, as Daniel looks at his business partner, his GM-- he sees that Anoush has aged three years in one. His dark eyes were strained at the corners, and most days didn’t look like the old ones-- _“The fun,”_ he had commented wryly to Daniel a few months back, “ _is done.”_

“Look,” he sighs. “Have you seen his resume?” 

“I don’t need to see it.” 

“He actually did really well at _Champion._ I called the GM up there and he had nothing but good things to say.”

“Of course he’s gonna say good things, he wants him out of there-- plus, he probably thinks it’s pretty interesting that _LaRusso_ _Auto_ is calling about Louie LaRusso--” 

“I told them I was from Cole’s,” Anoush snaps. “And last quarter, he sold 30 cars a month. Thirty, Daniel. Their staff average is _nineteen_. He’s killing it up there--” 

“It’s a different territory! It’s like sending him down to the Minor Leagues!” Daniel throws his hands up. Louie was bent over the coffee table in the breakroom, hands folded in front of him. “Sales are easier up there-- he was selling Chryslers, luxury is a different game, you know that.” 

“Daniel, if his resume had any other name on it, you would hire them in a heartbeat--” 

“ _He torched Johnny’s car--_ did he put that on his resume?!” 

Anoush’s mouth goes thin and flat again. “I’m going to be very frank with you. I don’t give a _shit,_ what he did to your boyfriend’s car a year and a half ago--” 

Daniel’s mouth falls open, but Anoush pushes forward. 

“I _need help,_ Daniel. The numbers this quarter are _shit_ . Cole’s is snapping up all the young blood in the Valley-- I’ve got my hands more than full, and I don’t have time to train the new sales staff. So unless _you_ want to cancel karate school and give me fifty hours a week, I'm hiring him. He knows the game, customers like him, and he can sell cars.” 

And just like that, Anoush turns back into the break room, shoulders dropping a little, Louie looking up hopefully. 

Daniel’s outside and almost free, fuming with a high buzzing fury in his ears, when Louie catches his elbow before he can yank the Audi’s door open. 

“Daniel, hey, _cuz--”_

Daniel throws his bag in the car, slams the door shut. 

“You got the job, Louie. Congratulations.” He knows. He sounds like a total dick.

“Look. I’m not taking it without your blessing.” He heaves an earnest breath, gives Daniel those big dumb blue puppy eyes that used to work like a charm. “I know you’re probably still mad about how things ended--” 

Daniel laughs, a little manic. “Do you remember why you got fired last year?” 

Louie bit his lip, looked off to one side, mouth dropping guiltily. 

_“You know._ You _should_ know.” Daniel feels his teeth grind, he can practically taste the bitterness on his tongue. “Amanda’s the one who fired you. Not me. I guess you figured, though, that that doesn’t count anymore. She’s gone so you can have your job back.” 

Louie, to his credit, looks totally shocked, his whole face drops.

Daniel stands, silent with a horrible twisting feeling in his chest. Sometimes he doesn’t recognize himself anymore.

“You,” he breathes out, not looking at Louie, and his fists clench and his eyes feel watery, like he’s not sure if he wants to punch his cousin or start crying. “You can start whenever. Anoush needs you.” 

Louie stands there shock-still while Daniel backs out and pulls away, out of the lot, out of the spot marked _“Daniel LaRusso, Owner”_ right next to the one that used to have Amanda’s name printed on it. Until it had to be replaced with a new sign, weeks after the funeral. 

And you couldn’t tell now, unless you knew better, that she had ever worked there. That she had ever been there at all. 

***

The Advanced class meets most days, from 3 to 5pm-- usually Robby, Sam, Miguel, Aisha, Bert, and Chris. Demetri, thankfully, had dropped down to the Intermediate class, which like the Youth class, was only twice a week.

Sam watches her father pace across the front of the room with his iPad, absorbed either in attendance, or in the pre-planned workout. Which was a little silly, as Johnny tended to derail whatever carefully penned lesson plan her Dad had worked out the week before. 

Sam pulls her toe backwards and inwards, feeling her calf muscles burn slow and deep. She could feel the persistent tightness of her IT-band, sheathed over top the hamstrings and quadriceps, blanketing the femur. The bone that was now held together with a metal plate and six screws, a crude, cobbled together Frankensteinean mess glowing bright on the post-op x-ray. 

It hadn’t been the crushed femur that had almost killed her, but the bone fragment that had nicked a small tear in her femoral artery, hemorrhaging blood into her leg. They gave her 6 bags of blood in 24 hours to save her life. To keep her from slipping into the nothingness, from leaving her father to go wherever her mother and brother were now.

She dreams about them, all the time. The smell of her mother’s skin, the sound of her brother’s voice. 

She’s paired up with Chris today. He’s got decent punches, plenty of power-- but slow legs, and his moves were predictable. She glances over at Miguel, who gives her a sympathetic eye roll-- he’s with Bert, whose speed was quickly helping him catch up with the rest of the class-- but whose size and lack of power were a constant problem. Aisha and Robby were already on the other side of the room, trading verbal jabs and actual punches, having a good time. 

Chris winced, barely slipping to avoid Sam’s jab, and inadvertently drops heavily to one knee. Sam reaches out, pulling him back to his feet. 

“Thanks,” he breathed, and admits sheepishly, “Feelin’ kinda slow today.” 

“Yeah,” she nodded, dropping her guard. “My hip’s super tight. One of those days, right?” 

“Girl, that’s everyday when you weigh 180 pounds.” 

She laughs, and swears she can see a blush creep up his dark cheeks. Chris really was a sweetheart. 

“Miss LaRusso, Mr. Brown, are we sparring or chatting today?” Johnny called from across the room, arms crossed. 

_“Sparring, Sensei!”_ Chris answered, falling back into position. 

Sam rolled her eyes, but raised her guard. It was funny, seeing some of the old habits persist in the former Cobras. She earns a disapproving eyebrow from her father, too, who was working with Bert a few feet away.

“So,” Chris breathed, moving sideways, trying to stay on the balls of his feet. “You got Labor Day plans?” 

“Um, yeah,” Sam ducked a jab. She could have tried a leg sweep, but the opportunity was wide and easy, and she didn’t feel like Chris really needed the extra demoralisation. “Robby and I are going up North to see my grandma. Mendocino County.” 

“Are your Dads going up? I didn’t know if we were having class this Friday--” 

Sam lets the words sink in, freezing her feet in place, and she’s frozen long enough for Chris to take a step back, and wind up for a crescent kick that she should have seen a mile away. She throws up a sloppy block, but the momentum from the kick knocks her flat on her butt, hands spread wide on the mat

“Damn, you okay?” Chris’s big brown eyes are wide, he’s standing over her like he hadn’t just knocked the air from her lungs. He’s as surprised as she is, to have caught her off-guard like that. 

“Yeah,” she nods, still in half-shock. She finds Johnny’s eyes, roving across the class, and they land on her, widening curiously when he sees her down, being helped up by Chris’s ready hand.

 _Your Dads,_ she hears, echoing in her ears. _Are your Dads going up?_

Chris pulls her to her feet. 

“Must be a full moon or something,” he chuckles. “Me catching Samantha LaRusso with her guard down.” 

She shakes her head, tries to focus her thoughts down to the basics, down to her breath and the beating of her heart. 

“I’m good now,” she nods, and tries to ignore the sight of her father bumping shoulders with Johnny across the room. 

***

Robby throws his backpack down beside his bed, pulling out his math textbook. He’d had to take Trigonometry over the summer, which was horrible enough. He was pretty sure, though, that Senior Pre-Calculus was specifically designed by a higher being to destroy his spirit. 

He yells for Sam across the hall. Sam was in Advanced Calc. Or, as Robby liked to call it, _“Math for egotists, sadists, nerds, and Samantha LaRusso.”_

Anyway. Fuck the Binomial Theorm is all Robby has to say about that. His library copy of Bruce Lee’s ‘ _Tao of Jeet Kune Do’_ was sitting sadly beside his bed, unreachable until he finished his stupid math assignment.

Sam pops her head in, freshly showered, makeup wiped off and in pyjamas. 

“What’s up?” 

He groans, lifting his math textbook up over his bed, and dropping it again. 

She smiled, wrinkling her nose up prettily. “Binomial Theorem? Pascal’s Triangle?” 

“Can you just do it for me?” he sighed heavily, and without expectation. 

She ducked out, but returned shortly with her laptop, and curled up on the far side of his bed, leaning back against his oversize Han Solo pillow (ok yeah “nerdy”, but he’d had it as a kid, his mom had bought it for him when he was little). 

“Ok, lemme see the assignment,” she gestured with her hand out, grabby fingers opening and closing instantly. 

He handed it over, and they spent an extremely forgettable twenty minutes going over the lesson, time which Robby will never, ever get back. 

“So the second term you start at the lowest power, and then you just add them up...” Robby scratches the answer down, feeling like he was starting to maybe get the concept, when he realizes Sam wasn’t pointing out his terrible handwriting or correcting any mistakes or doing any of her usual chatting away whatsoever. 

In fact, she was staring blankly, mouth open slightly, forehead crinkled down in thought.

“Please tell me you’re not thinking about calculus,” he searches her expression. 

She blinks back into focus. “What?” 

“You okay?” 

She nods, chews on the inside of her cheek. 

“C’mon, what’s up,” he sits up, setting his pencil aside. 

She breathes deeply, shaking her head. “It’s just something Chris said today. He was asking about the trip this weekend. He said... _‘Are your Dads going?’_

Robby frowned. “What’s weird about that?” 

“Well just the way he said it...like they were married or something.” 

“I’m sure he just meant like, ‘your dad’ and ‘my dad’, you know. ‘Both of our Dads’.”

She shook her head, the tone of her voice unsatisfied. “Yeah. I guess.”

Robby swallowed, thinking about the past few months. Diaz’s concerns way back in June. _‘You start seeing things,’_ he had said. _‘It messes with you.’_

“It’s just--” she starts. “It got me thinking, you know. About us...this family. I mean I think of us as a family. Don’t you?”

Robby feels his mouth pull wide, he tries to bite down on it, not look like a totally giddy dork. “Yeah,” he nods, tapping his index finger over his pencil point, making the eraser end jump like a see-saw. 

“I mean they...they really do seem to care about each other. Right?” 

“Yeah,” he agrees. He thinks about frisbee at the beach, the fridge stuffed with IPA mix packs right next to Coors Original, Daniel and his Dad bent over the hood of the Challenger, home games at Dodger Stadium. Drive-in movies at the _Electric Dusk_ in the Ford. Salsa lessons in the living room. Big Italian dinners, hot ovens, dishwashers that were always full. Neatly stacked piles of laundry, lawn mowing, and laughter. 

Early Sunday mornings with Daniel practicing kata in serene silence, which had become ritual, ‘their thing’. 

His Dad helping Sam with her tornado kick early last summer, when her hip and leg muscles were still too tight to spin quite right. Her frustrated tears and Johnny’s persistent encouragement. 

It wasn’t like anything he’d ever had before. 

It was a whole life. 

“I mean,” she grimaces. “The napping thing last night was weird. But...you know...Dad’s just...”

“Just likes having somebody there, probably.” Robby shrugs. “Not a bad thing.” 

Sam nods, a small smile pushing at her cheeks. “I don’t think so either.” 

“You know. And even if...even if it’s more...” Robby looks up, a little hesitant. 

Sam’s smile gets bigger, her words get softer, almost a whisper. “Not a bad thing either.” 

They both look at each other a minute, biting back laughter. 

“Do you think--” 

“Maybe!” 

“What are they doing right now--” 

Robby forgets his math homework, and follows Sam on his hands and knees, giggling like kids down the carpeted hall right up to the top of the stairway. Sam curls her fingers over the wall, peeking down into the living room, and he nudges her gently to share the view. 

Their Dads were on the couch, Johnny’s hair was wet from the shower. They were both laughing at something on the TV. 

“Oh my God,” Sam whispered. “Our Dads are totally dating, Robby.” She grinned, pointing down at the TV. “Just _look_ at them.” 

Mr. LaRusso’s feet were up on the coffee table. Johnny was laid across the couch, legs stretched lengthwise across the sofa and over Daniel’s lap. Daniel hasn’t bothered to push him away, only lays a hand softly over Johnny’s shin, eyes focused up on the TV. 

“They’re watching _This Old House._ That’s like...the most old person couple thing ever.” 

_“Indisputable proof,”_ he whispers, laughing along with her, like it was all a big joke. 

Still, though, something warm and secure folds softly within his chest, like a blanket, reassuring and lovely. 

“This is crazy, Robby,” she murmurs, and reaches back to grab at his hand. “This is _so crazy!”_

***

“What are they working on?” Daniel drops down on the couch, and tosses one of two beers into Johnny’s waiting hands. 

“The Brookline House. Mid-Century modern.” 

“They’re still on that one?” The beer cracks open, long legs up on the coffee table. He’s drinking a Coors, like Johnny, because he was out of his fancier beer, and Johnny finds something satisfying about watching him drink it, like he was sinking down off his pedestal, down to Johnny’s level. 

Johnny lifts his beer to his mouth, and stretches his own legs over Daniel’s lap. “Kevin O’Connor is such a beefcake.” 

Daniel gestures in protest, still halfway through swallowing his beer. “Do I look like an ottoman to you?” 

“A _what?”_

“An _ottoman,_ you know, it’s like a, a stool, or a footrest, you can put your feet up or sit on it.”

“A fucking footstool, you mean?”

“Most people call it an ottoman--”

“Most people from the country club call it that, no _normal_ people call it that--” 

The funny thing is, LaRusso wasn’t even trying to push Johnny’s legs away. He was resting his wrist over Johnny’s shin, beer-in-hand. 

“Whatever. It’s a real thing, it’s a real word, people call it that.” He shrugged down into the couch, with that put-upon look that wasn’t really put-upon, Johnny knew, it was just a look he saved for Johnny to keep up old pretenses. 

“Really, though,” Johnny pointed his Coors to the TV. “The guy is jacked.” 

“He’s a good lookin’ guy,” Daniel conceded, thumb tapping into Johnny’s calf. It was a little distracting.

“I’d let him lay my tile,” Johnny snorted into his beer. 

“Nono. You’d want Tom Silva laying your tile,” Daniel grinned. 

“Yeah, good point.” Johnny smirked, looking at the TV but not really processing what was going on. He felt warm, and comfortable, and a little buzzed. Daniel’s hand had stopped fidgeting, now a simple weight. Johnny could feel all five fingertips.

“I’m meeting Tracey, tomorrow. For dinner.”

“Oh, yeah?” Johnny asks casually, as if he hadn't already known. 

“Yeah.” Daniel takes a sip of beer, eyes still up on the TV. Tom Silva was talking about staircases, about rises and runs, about how if there was a step that was too high or too low, you’d trip on it. Every time you’d trip, no matter how careful.

“Well. Have fun with that.” 

Daniel shakes his head, bites at the inside of his cheek. “I know you don’t like her.” 

“Right.” Johnny had finished his beer, but kept it in his hands, if only for something to do and look at. 

“I really don’t think you’ve given her a chance.” 

“Okay.” 

“And it’s...anyway it’s not like it’s serious. I think I’m just trying to get back out there--” Daniel was speaking very earnestly to the floor and the TV. “I dunno. I dunno what I’m doing.” 

_You’re getting sucked in, that’s what you’re doing_ Johnny thought, because he knew how quickly you could lose ten years. When you were drunk, or sad, or apathetic. Or all of the above. Shannon wasn’t ever supposed to be a serious thing, after all. 

“I talked to Carmen today,” he says instead.

“Oh, yeah?” Daniel pulls his eyes from the screen, looks over at Johnny, and Johnny can feel the smallest tightening of the hand on his leg, all five fingertips compressing in just slightly. 

“Yeah. She’s giving me another shot.” 

Daniel’s eyes go down, just for a second, then back up to the screen. “That’s good.” 

“I’m taking her out tomorrow, too.” 

Daniel stares at the TV. Kevin O’Connor was bent over the staircase next to Tom Silva, talking about how you had to know what kind of flooring you were using before you even started, otherwise the thickness could throw it all off, ‘ _You gotta be thinking about that when you’re building this-- you have to know.’_

Daniel clears his throat, beer halfway to his mouth. “Where are you guys going?” 

“Not sure yet.” 

Daniel turns, eyes narrowed just a little. 

Johnny has to be careful here, or he’ll blow it. 

“You should decide soon. Friday night, you know. Places book up quick.” 

“I’m sure we’ll figure something out.” Johnny picks his feet up, folds his legs back and sits up. “I’m pretty blown, I’ll see you in the morning.” 

“I’m taking the kids to the airport, so I might not see you--” 

“Oh, right,” Johnny had almost forgotten. He stretches, looks back down to see LaRusso’s eyes studying him, cautious. “I’ll see you in class, then?” 

“Yeah,” Daniel nodded. 

“Night,” Johnny calls, retreats back down the hall, leaving Daniel bathed in the light of the television.

***

“Goodnight,” Daniel calls, softly, and watches Johnny walk back down the hallway, listens to the sound and scrape of brushing teeth and water in the sink. The soft close of his bedroom door.

He turns the TV off, stands in the dark, walks to the kitchen to rinse his beer can out and throw it in the recycling. 

He thinks about Carmen and Johnny, how lovely they looked together, his sun blonde hair and surf blue eyes, and her smooth, dark legs and honey-soft voice. His tall sturdy shoulders and her petite waist and dancer’s legs. A study in contrasts.

He has a sudden pang, wishing he could pick up the phone, call the old landline to the little blue house in Canoga Park, hear Mr. Miyagi’s voice amid the static from the fraying cord. _Truth is here,_ and he would point to his belly, and then to his head, and Daniel would see all of this even from miles away across the Valley-- _not here, Daniel-san._ And Daniel would understand exactly what it all meant, and what he should be doing, and he would feel alright about the world for a little while. 

He makes sure the front door is locked, and the lights are all off, and heads down to his room, glancing only briefly at Johnny’s closed door. 

That night, he tosses, and turns, and doesn’t sleep well. He pads over to his window at three in the morning, pulls down on the cord and the bright silver light of the full moon shines in, as bright as day. 

He wonders if Johnny’s already asleep-- or if he’s laying there awake in his too-bright room, washed in moonlight, trapped like Daniel in the confused haze of his own thoughts. 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kevin O'Connor and Tom Silva are National Treasures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0Yzrx7ACcE
> 
> Watch "Moonstruck" someday before you die. 
> 
> This chapter is probably too long at 8k but it's building up to a very big chapter that you'll get in another day or so!! Hopefully!! I've already got 3k written of that one, the finished bit will probably only be 4 or 5k, so hopefully next update-- this weekend! If I can!


	7. Answer to the Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things escalate to a point.

> Two hearts fading, like a flower
> 
> And all this waiting, for the power
> 
> For some answer, to this fire
> 
> Sinking slowly, the waters higher
> 
> Mmm, Desire
> 
> Desire
> 
> With no secrets, no obsession
> 
> This time I'm speeding, with no direction
> 
> Without a reason, what is this fire?
> 
> Burning slowly, my one and only
> 
> _\- Desire, Ryan Adams, ‘Demolition’ (2002)_

**FRIDAY**

***

Johnny spends Friday morning alone at the house, staring into his instant oatmeal, the kind LaRusso hated that came in the brown paper packets with way too much sugar and little pieces of dried up apples. Class isn’t until 3 o’clock and he thinks if he stays here until LaRusso gets back from the airport he’ll probably get interrogated about his date with Carmen that night, and besides not wanting to arouse any suspicion, he also finds he doesn’t want to _think_ about it all that much, he finds he’s _nervous,_ his stomach knotted tight the way it used to get before a big tournament. 

So he puts on the only running shoes he owns and he grabs the MP3 player and headphones Robby got him last Christmas, with all the songs pre-programmed onto it so he didn’t have to mess with the downloader thingy, iSongs or whatever it was. 

It’s about six miles straight-shot on Sherman Way to the dojo, but he cuts south to the Orange Line, a tree-shaded bike path that avoided most of the traffic and main streets. There is the added annoyance of douches in spandex swerving around from behind, ringing their bike bells, but it’s a nice run, and the hill up past Pierce College is pretty. He keeps his eyes open and the tunes rolling and tries not to think about much of anything, about his kid flying hundreds of miles an hour thousands of feet up in the air, or LaRusso back at the house, probably laying out different colored shirts on the bed, which shoes to wear, how many undone buttons was too many. 

He keys the code into the back fence (installed “post-Hawk” as LaRusso liked to remind him), and leaves it unlocked in case Miguel or anyone else shows up early. He keys into the front door, leaves his phone and MP3 player in the kitchen and tips a tall glass of water down his throat and splashes tap water over his face. 

He slides open the shoji doors, from the inner dojo to the back deck, stands for a few minutes trying to catch his breath. The white canvas bags hung ready, the cedar-stained deck and fences pristinely stained, except for a few dedicated areas LaRusso had the youth class practicing on. 

He sits, pulls his shoes and socks off, and leaves them by the door. He starts into an old routine, pushups, situps, burpees, pullups. Pounds the bag awhile, shadowboxing, keeping to the balls of his feet, concentrating on his footwork, the rhythm of his footwork, the current step and the next step and the constant awareness of their position relative to the opponent (the enemy). 

_“Control the Distance, Control the Fight”_ he hears, Kreese’s words still ringing in his head, hardwired. 

He starts practicing a few different spin kicks, and it’s frustrating because the grassy ground is uneven around the bag, like it is in the whole fucking yard, which LaRusso tells him is the _point_ of it-- _find your balance, don’t relay on the ground to find it for you,_ he would say, or some other annoying phrase that meant the same thing whether you said it backwards or forwards. He’s setting his feet back into position when suddenly the ground kicks up from under him and sends him back on his ass. 

Miguel crows, already bouncing from foot to foot, guard up. “NO MERCY, Sensei!” 

They could still talk like this, just as long as the Miyagi-dos weren’t around. 

Johnny groans, looking up at his first, best student, betrayed. “Didn’t we get rid of that one?” 

Miguel grins, and drops his guard. “You had your back turned, it was too easy.” 

Which. Quid pro quid, or whatever. Johnny shifts his weight to his palms, arches his hips up, and sweeps his nearest leg in a wide arc, taking Miguel’s feet out from under him. He lands square on his tailbone. Ha. 

_“Agghhhh--”_ he groans, eyes squeezed shut in pain. He was fine. “I think I cracked my tail bone--” 

“You did not,” Johnny leans back on his elbows. Probably he didn’t anyway. 

Miguel winced, and sat up experimentally. “Okay, but it’s definitely bruised.”

“You asked for it,” Johnny tries not to show how hard he was breathing. 

“Yeah, I guess.” Miguel wraps his elbows around his still knobby knees, squinting through the sun over at Johnny. “How long have you been here?” 

“What time is it?” 

“Two.” 

“Oh. Uh...” Four hours. Five, if you counted the run. “Maybe an hour.” 

Miguel nods. “Yeah. I thought I’d get here a little early, too.” 

“Since you can’t canoodle around with Sam?” 

“I don’t know what that means.” 

“Uh huh,” he nods, runs a hand through his sweaty hair. He’s missed his one-on-one time with Miguel, despite how happy he was about how things were going with Robby. That all had something to do with dating Carmen, too, and the guilt stewing around that was something he could do without. “Listen, I uh, need to talk to you about something.”

Johnny eases to his feet, takes a seat on the deck, and pats the spot next to him. 

“Okay....” Miguel frowned, those big brown puppy eyes blinking cautiously as he walks over, wincing a little as he sits next to Johnny on the deck. Their legs dangle, toes in the grass. 

“I know...we haven’t gotten to talk in awhile. And I’m sorry that this year...” 

That taking care of one son has meant neglecting the other. 

“That me stepping up for Robby has meant that we haven’t gotten to do our thing. I think you know... you should know that _I know_ I’ve failed there.” 

Miguel’s face softened. “Sensei--” 

“And dating your Mom,” Johnny shook his head. “I should have talked to you. I really screwed that one up--” 

“Well yeah, but--” 

“So I’m sorry. But I want you to know, no matter what, I’m your Sensei. I’ll always be there for you, and if I’m not, you got permission to kick some sense into me, okay?” 

Miguel got that warm, sparkly expression on his face, the one he hadn’t seen in a long while. 

“Thanks, Sensei. I know all that, but it’s nice to hear.” 

“No problem,” Johnny held out his fist for a manly bump, and Miguel quickly bumped back, a big grin on his face. “Oh, and just so there’s no confusion. Your Mom is helping me with something tonight, but it’s _just as friends--_ alright? She’s on the same page with me on this one.” 

Miguel snorted. “Oh, you mean your fake date mission to win Mr. LaRusso over? Yeah, speaking of kicking some sense into you--” 

“What?! No, it’s not to-- nobody’s winning anybody, I’m trying to protect him from that succubus counselor--” 

“It’s okay, Sensei,” Miguel pats him on the back. “Pretty much everybody already knows, anyway--”

“They don’t know shit, because there’s nothing to know-- did your Mom tell you all this?!” 

_“Weeell_ ,” Miguel grins, rolling his eyes to the side. “I mean, _yes,_ but she didn’t really have to say anything. I’m really proud of you for accepting these feelings, I wasn’t sure how you’d react, or if we’d have to watch you wallow around in your repressed sexual feelings for another semester. Have you taken one of those Kinsey scale tests? I bet you’re about a 2. Or maybe like a 2.5--”

Johny turned, grabbed at a water bottle tucked into Miguel’s backpack pocket, aimed, and sprayed his favorite student good in the face. 

_“Ppplbbbtt!”_ Miguel splutters, “What’d you do that for??”

“I don’t know what any of that shit means-- but don’t go repeating that, alright? LaRusso and I are good. We’re roommates.” 

“Roommates in looooooooov-- _huuggh--_ ” Miguel hacks on another spray of water, this one hitting right in his blabby mouth. 

“Stop that,” and Johnny’s starting to enjoy himself, just a little now. “Hey, why don’t we talk about you and LaRusso’s daughter instead, huh?” He throws the water bottle back over his shoulder. 

Miguel stops coughing, face falling immediately into a pathetic, moony expression. 

“I miss her already, Sensei, _what does it mean?!”_ Miguel dropped to lay on his back, sort of a mock-faint, but Johnny could see the genuine teen-angst in there too.

“It means you are pussy whipped, Diaz. She’s got you wrapped around her finger.” 

“She’s got the prettiest fingers,” Miguel sighed, gazing at the clouds. “And hands. She uses this lotion that smells really nice, and keeps her hands soft.” 

Johnny wrinkled his nose. “Don’t say shit like that. It’s weird for me. She’s like my...” He hesitates, thinking _daughterdaughterdaughter_. “Niece, or something, now. It’s bad enough I have to watch you perv-stare at her all class.” 

“I don’t perve-stare!” Miguel sits up, flapping his t-shirt up and down on his chest, trying to squeeze the water from the collar. “We...” he smiles like that dumb twitterpated skunk in Bambi. “We gaze. That’s what we do.”

Johnny hears steps from inside the house, and something about the cadence, the weight of them, tells him exactly who it is. 

“You wanna explain that to her father?” Johnny grins, twists around-- “HEY, LaRusso!” 

“Yeah?” he answers, sounding a little distracted, and steps through the backyard, slipping his phone into the back pocket of his soccer pants. He looks from Johnny, soaked in sweat, to Miguel’s wet, wide-eyed face. 

“Diaz here was just talking about your daughter, what were you saying? Something about how soft her skin is--” 

LaRusso’s face-- it does this thing, where his eyes get wide and his mouth kind of gets small, and he looks angry but really like a pissed off terrier-- well you’d have to be there, and Diaz makes this squeaking sound in his throat, and _it’s so goddamn funny--_

LaRusso starts toeing his shoes off, pulls off his socks, unzips his hoody. “You. Me. Wheeltime, Diaz. Now.” 

“Ohhh, I-I don’t--” 

_“Now,”_ LaRusso makes a threatening gesture with his eyebrows. 

“You heard him!” Johnny squirts Miguel in the face with the water bottle again. “Get to it, Diaz!” 

“Yes, Sensei. Senseis,” Miguel groans, and pulls his shoes off, muttering under his breath, something like _“There were no wheels in Cobra Kai--”_

“What was that, Miguel? I didn’t quite hear--” 

“Nothing, Sensei! Er, Mr. LaRusso!” Miguel hurries after Daniel. 

Johnny walks slowly after them, enjoying the sight and the sound of them, sort of an odd sight but not really all that odd once you started seeing the similarities. 

“Ready?” Daniel’s eyes were serious and focused on Miguel across the wheel. Miguel nods, and on the count of three, they haul themselves up, feet hitting the wet wood almost in unison. 

“Eyes on me,” Daniel counsels, his feet and Miguel’s feet inching across the surface, trying to find perfect balance. 

Aisha, Chris, and Bert get there few minutes later, so Johnny starts taking them one-by-one through the newest spin kicks they were learning. 

LaRusso keeps Miguel up on the wheel the whole class period, and Johnny finds himself staring, a little transfixed, and almost gets clocked in the face by Aisha’s wheel kick. 

“Hey Sensei, eyes over here,” Aisha cracks, and Chris and Bert giggle supportively. 

Johnny sends them on a two mile run, and retreats back into the little blue house to put his shoes back on, and starts his run home.

***

LaRusso usually putts around the dojo after practice, watering the trees, gettind down on his hands and knees with a pair of overpriced Japanese scissors and evening out the edges of the lawn. 

He’s kidding. Sort of. 

But anyway there are enough distractions there that Johnny’s fairly confident he has enough time to shower, throw a decent outfit on, and sneak into LaRusso’s bathroom to use his expensive hair stuff that was nice because you could put it in and didn’t make you look like one of the Backstreet Boys.

He almost makes it, running into LaRusso as he’s shouldering out the door. 

“Oh, hey--” 

“Hey, you off already?” Daniel steps back, letting Johnny through. 

“Yeah,” Johnny huffs. “I gotta go meet Carmen.” 

LaRusso was still in his hoody and soccer pants. “You know you could have asked me for a ride home.” 

“Yeah, I dunno, just...needed to burn some calories.” 

Daniel nods, jangling his keys around in his pocket. “Did you guys decide where you’re going?” 

“Uh, she’s surprising me,” Johnny ducks his head, squinting in the evening sun. 

“Oh, great,” Daniel does the tongue thing, licking his bottom lip. “Well have fun.” 

“Yeah, man, you too,” Johnny calls from over his shoulder, pressing the button on the key fob, headlights blinking sleepily to life. 

***

Johnny had texted Carmen earlier in the day, offering to pick her up. He gets back a sufficiently salty response:

 _ >> _🙄 

_ >> no _

_ >> i will meet u there. _

Which he takes as roughly equivalent to, ‘Fuck no.’ 

He parks at the back of the parking lot, keeping an eye out for the Audi. The dance floor didn’t open up till eight, and he knew LaRusso would have to get ready and pick Tracey up, so he had some time to get in and get settled. 

He’s watching out for Carmen’s shitty white sedan, when a silver BMW slows down, honking cheerfully. 

“Johnny!” a voice calls, and Johnny groans. George lowers his window, sticking his elbow out with a big grin on his face. “I’ve got your partner in crime!” 

He doesn’t bother to hide his eye roll. “Yeah, man, thanks for dropping her off.” 

Carmen leans over, gives George a quick kiss, and steps out of the passenger side. She looks incredible of course, strappy gold shoes, mint green dress that floats to her knees, gold hoop earrings, and her hair pulled into a pretty bun at the nape of her neck. 

Johnny lets an inadvertent _WOW_ leave his mouth. 

“Take care of my girl, okay?” George smiles softly, eyes following her across the front of the car. 

“ _‘Your girl’,_ that’s a little soon for that George-- _OW!”_ Carmen’s heel stamps down on his toes. 

“Well Johnny,” George smiles, oblivious to the insult, “I’m proud of you for goin’ for it, buddy. I’ll tell you, I’m just a sucker for a big romantic gesture. Daniel’s one lucky guy--” 

“Bye George,” Johnny grabs Carmen’s elbow, and she jabs him in the ribs. She clicks back to the window, leans in for a last goodbye kiss, muttering in Spanish. George waves a last enthusiastic goodbye, and dives off. 

“He speaks Spanish?” Johnny floats a hand behind the small of Carmen’s back. Miraculously, she lets him. 

“Yes he does,” Carmen quirks her eyebrows up at him, a clever sideways smile. 

He looks down at her, and his feet pull to a stop. She was so incredibly beautiful, the evening light turning the fine ends of her hair a soft bronze. “Am I an idiot?” he asks, and the words surprise him a little, he’s not really sure what he means by them.

She turns, puts her hands up on his collar. She frowns, and unbuttons one more button, the one he’d fastened up last minute up in the car. 

“There,” she says, and pats at his chest. “Let your heart lead, your feet will follow.” 

***

Daniel leads Tracey through the front door and up to the host stand, and before he gets the words out of his mouth, he sees them. 

It’s eight o’clock, the dance floor has just opened up, so there are only a handful of couples on the floor, and Carmen and Johnny might as well have a spotlight on them.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he breathes. 

“What’s up?” Tracey asks, a hand light on his arm and she follows his gaze. _“Oh--”_ she says, and grips his elbow a little tighter.

She looks nice tonight. He had pulled up in front of her second floor apartment in North Hollywood, and she bounced down the stairs a few seconds after his text. Low, practical black heeled sandals, a knee-length black dress with a little bit of flounce to it, her hair pinned up and tucked behind her ears, silver earrings dangling down. He can see behind her glasses, she had put a little bit of eye makeup on. It was easy in the car, talking to her. Surprisingly not awkward, actually, and they chat about his day at the dojo and her day at school and everything is nice.

“Must be a funny coincidence,” he murmurs, eyes fixed on Johnny and Carmen. 

The hostess seats them, hands them menus, and leaves. Daniel has a clear view of the dance floor, and it’s really no surprise when he looks over at the neighboring table and sees a can of Coors and a half-empty michelada. He thinks about begging the waitress for a new table, but it’s Friday night, the place is packed, and really, it would probably be more awkward sitting twenty feet away than sharing a table. 

“He planned this,” Daniel seethed, watched Johnny’s feet, he’d gotten quite a bit better than the last time he’d given him a lesson in the living room. “Somehow, I know he planned this.

“Oh, it’s alright,” Tracey smiles nervously. “It’s a double-date-- it’ll be fun.” 

Daniel rips his eyes from the dance floor. “Do you wanna go? Maybe we should just go, you know, we could go catch a movie, we could even go to that taco stand, you know the one just north of the Boulevard on White Oak, the carne asada there is incredible--” 

“No, Daniel, it’s _fine--_ and I’m sure he didn’t plan it. That would be a little crazy, even for Johnny.”

“Uh-huh.” Daniel muttered, turning back to the floor. The music ended with a festive blast of trumpets, and Johnny dipped Carmen down-- sloppy, and with poor form, but Carmen laughed in his arms like he was Fred Astaire. 

The waitress finally comes over, and they order. Daniel gets a double tequila. 

“Okay,” he stands, offers his hand. “Ready for your first lesson?” 

She laughs, sets her purse and phone aside, and allows him to pull her to her feet. “Yes, Sensei.” 

***

Johnny holds Carmen out for a spin, and nearly loses his grip on her fingers. LaRusso looks _piiiiiisssed,_ and he’s doing that scary thing where he’s smiling with his mouth and planning murder with his eyes. 

_Uh oh,_ he thinks. Carmen nearly hits a nearby wall after he really does let go mid-spin. 

Carmen almost trips over her feet but recovers gracefully. “Oh, _hi_ you guys!,” she laughs, and it’s actually scary how good she is at pretending she had no idea they were coming. She embraces Tracey and kisses her once on the cheek, and then the same with Daniel. He’s seen her do that with her mother, probably an Ecuador thing.

“Hey, it’s crazy seeing you guys here, too!” Daniel smile-glares at Johnny. “What a surprise.” 

Johnny snakes an arm around Carmen’s waist, gambling that she wouldn’t stomp on his foot in front of LaRusso. “You know this one,” he winks. “She’s a dance-- dancer. She’s loves to dance.” 

Carmen looks up at him, probably in disgust. He can’t actually see her face, and keeps a pleasant smirk trained on LaRusso. Probably, he should have planned on what to say... or thought more clearly about what he was doing...

Daniel purses his lips. “You know what we could use. Drinks. C’mon Johnny, let’s get a round--” 

“We’ve already got one at the table--” he jerks his head, arm tightening around Carmen. 

Daniel reaches out, still smile-glaring, and closes an iron grip around Johnny’s elbow. “Let’s get another one,” and drags Johnny away. 

“I’ll take a margarita!” Carmen shouts, helpfully, smiling and waving. 

“Oh, make that two, please!” Tracey chimes in. 

“C’mon, Romeo,” Daniel hisses in Johnny’s ear. “You heard the ladies.” 

Johnny pulls his elbow roughly away. “All right, all right, _Danielle,_ don’t get your panties in a twist.” 

Daniel huffs predictably. “God, you are such a d--” 

***

“Dancing with my lady, I told you we were going out tonight--” Johnny had pushed rudely up to the bar, and Daniel had no choice but to cut in right next to him. 

“I asked what the hell you guys are doing _here,_ Johnny. You knew I was taking Tracey out, and you knew we’d be here-- you could have picked any other spot in the Valley--” 

“Is your name on the building?? Carmen wanted to go dancing, and she likes it here so we’re here.” 

“What can I get you?” the bartender comes over, eyes on Johnny, and she was smiling a little too broadly. Most women did around Johnny. 

He looked annoyingly good tonight, a midnight blue dress shirt that almost looked black, that made his eyes look even bluer, bringing out the darker undertones. His dark fitted jeans and boots. His hair was perfect as usual.

Asshole.

Daniel shoulders in next to him, pressing up on his toes to lean across the bar. “We need two house margaritas--” 

“Four tequila shots,” Johnny winked at the waitress, which was enough to override Daniel’s request, apparently. She hadn't even looked at him. 

“What kind, darlin?” she tilts her chin forward, already grabbing the glasses. 

“Whatever’s well--” 

“Give him the Don Julio Anejo,” Daniel snaps, apparently loud enough to snap her out of her Johnny-induced trance. He glances back over his shoulder. Carmen was leading Tracey around on the dance floor, teaching her some basic steps. They were laughing, hands clasped together. 

“Fine,” Johnny snaps back, glaring. _“Danielle_ wants the fancy shit, she gets the fancy shit--” 

Daniel can’t believe how quickly he’s losing control of his anger, it was so stupid, how well Johnny knew the exact order of buttons to press, and how deftly he was able to dig under any armor Daniel tried to put up. It made him feel childish. Powerless. 

“You know,” Daniel grits out, watching the bartender pour the tequila, setting out the limes and salt on a tray next to the glasses. “If you were my friend. You wouldn’t do this shit to me.” 

Johnny looks at him, right in the eye, his mouth dropped open a little bit, like he was actually surprised. Or sorry. 

“That’s not what--” 

_“Oye chicos!”_ Carmen pulls Tracey up to the bar, hand in hand, grinning. Tracey was laughing, and Daniel feels himself soften a little, that at least she was still having a good time. “What’s taking so long?” 

Johnny shifts sideways, picking up two shot glasses, handing them over to the ladies. They do that kind of mock protest _OOoohhh!_ And _bastardo!_ but pluck their glasses from his fingers obligingly, holding them ready to cheers. 

“Salt, tequila, lime, ladies, that’s the order!” Johnny laughs, licking the back of his hand, grabbing for the salt. Charming bastard. 

Carmen and Tracey lick their hands and hold them out for salt, picking a lime up from the little ceramic plate. 

“C’mon, Daniel, where’s yours?” Tracey laughs, as Johnny sprinkles salt over her skin.

Johnny turns, eyebrows raised. 

“C’mon, Danielle, don’t be a party pooper--” Johnny shakes the little shaker in his fingers, nodding down at the last glass on the tray. 

Daniel glares. He picks up the shot and lime. He licks the back of his hand. 

“Atta boy,” Johnny mutters, as Carmen and Tracey cheer. 

Johnny pours the salt, eyes locked on Daniel as they clink their glasses all together, lick the salt, and tip the shots back. Johnny winces a little but covers it quickly, biting into his lime. 

Carmen slams her glass down first, and grabs Daniel’s chin, forcing him away from his glaring contest with Johnny. 

“Daniel,” she breathes, “There’s a contest tonight. The winner gets that trophy--” she points across the room to a three-tiered trophy sitting on top of a raised table. She pulls Daniel closer, shifting her grip from his chin to his shirt. 

_“I want that trophy, Daniel,”_ she says, with all the slow precision and enthusiasm of someone who had probably already had a couple of unknown drinks, a half a michelada, a tequila shot, and no dinner. 

“I think we should order dinner first,” Johnny clears his throat.

Carmen’s grip tightens, looks over at Johnny. Daniel swallows. 

“I’ll take the fish tacos. Daniel?” 

It’s really less of a request then it should be.

“Uh. Fajita Especiale.” He glares up at Johnny, and pulls Carmen’s slim fingers into his hand. “If Carmen wants the trophy, I’ll get her the trophy. Nobody wants to be second place, right Johnny?” 

He lifts Carmen’s arm, leading her to the floor. 

“Oh! Okay, this is great! Maybe we can just dance after, that’s great--” 

Tracey’s voice fades into the background, and all Daniel can see is Carmen. 

He can feel Johnny, though. His eyes at his back, following like a third partner anywhere he stepped. 

The band leader claps, announces the start with a big smile on his face. Carmen steps in, and Daniel places his hand lightly around her waist. She steps closer, whispering in his ear, eyes over his shoulder. 

“He’s watching,” she whispers. He frowns, but doesn’t take his eyes from Johnny. “You want to give him a show?” 

He looks down at her. Her eyes dance playfully. She grabs his hand, wraps her other around his neck.

 _“Vámonos,”_ he smiles. 

She laughs. “Your Spanish needs a little work-- _vamos!”_

***

Johnny watches Daniel twirl Carmen around the floor, his arm steading around her waist, her fingers pushed up lightly against his shoulder. Carmen’s mint green dress swirls like an opening flower, and Johnny’s never put a smile like that on either of their faces, they look young and careless. 

“Look’s fun, doesn’t it?” Tracey sits across the table, legs crossed, chin resting on her curled fist, angled to watch the dance floor.

Johnny snorts. Takes another drink. 

She turns her head, sweeps a look over him. 

“What did I ever do to you, anyway?” Her voice was quiet but steady.

“Dunno what you mean.” 

Daniel dips Carmen across the room, her back arched over his arm in a low, sweet line. 

“You know I counsel kids like you everyday.” 

He turns to actually look at her. Her skin was pale and pasty against her black dress, he thinks she was going for simple and classy, the modest neckline and the capped sleeves. Instead she looks plain and washed out, like she was dressed for a funeral. Next to Carmen she looked like nothing at all. 

“Yeah good for you.”

“They’re bullies. Things look so good from the outside. They’re pretty. Popular. Smart. But there’s always holes. You find them if you talk long enough.” 

Johnny takes another drink. Tracey turns toward him, ignoring the dance floor, leaning over the empty plates. “You don’t think I should be with him--” 

He wants to say _You’re not good enough,_ or _He needs somebody better_ , or _he’s mine to keep, mine to protect._

“He’s not ready,” he says instead, gritting out the words. 

“That’s his call to make. Not yours.” Her voice is shaky, he can tell she’s nervous, that this is difficult for her. 

Something black, sick like tar, something _mean--_ curls around in Johnny’s chest, a cousin of the thing that used to tell him to push Daniel into lockers, down a ravine, leave him with his breath knocked out in the sand on Topanga beach; the thing that told him he should look Daniel in the eye through a kitchen window and press his lips hard against Ali’s mouth. 

“You’re a _vulture,”_ he leans over the table, voice low and very clear. “You’re an _opportunist_. You know his head’s not right yet. You know he’d never want you but you also know you can get him to give in-- you’ve waited thirty years and now his wife’s dead. And he’s _sad_ , and he’s _lonely_ , and he’s _weak--_ And you think you’ve got a shot.” 

Johnny sits back, seeing her face go slack. The tequila is really singing through his ears, and the black thing in his chest eases a little, only because he could see the blow had struck true.

Her jaw stretches to the side like she was trying not to cry, and he can see a couple of tears. And he knows, in the back of the head, that there was no way at this point anything would turn out okay. 

But he can’t help it. He’s always liked to win.

 _“Wow,”_ she croaks, eyes widening, and she huffs out a breath, wipes at the tears behind her glasses. “You must really hate me.” 

“That isn’t what you’re trying to do?” 

She takes a few seconds, hands flat on the table. She was trying not to cry, and there was another sick, mean thrill to that. _Weak,_ he thinks, _she’s so weak._

“You...” her voice is telltale tight, chin shaking. She breathes in through her nose. When she speaks, her voice is quieter, but steady. She looks up from the table. “You know what, Johnny? You’re right. He was never gonna fall in love with me,” she swallows. “But he likes me okay. And I would never hurt him.”

“He can do better than you.” 

Her eyes narrow, her back straightens. “You know. The thing about you...Johnny. People like you. You go through life...you’re pretty. You take what you want. You’ve never had to settle for less.” She leans forward, matching his own venomous posture. 

“But what you’re doing... _it’s worse than what I’m doing.”_

“And how’s that?” Johnny hears little warning bells, or maybe it’s the end of the dance number across the room. 

She whispers, the shake back in her voice. _“You want your cake._ You want _him,_ his friendship, the house, the yard, the _family you never had--_ and you’ll keep chasing girls like me away. Because you want him for yourself--”

Tears are rolling down her cheeks now but she knows, she’s got him pinned down--

“And someday he’s gonna find someone you can’t bully away, and you’ll be alone again. _You’re a coward, Johnny Lawrence._ And you’re a bully. And what’s worse is you can’t see how selfish you’re being. Because you’re right that I’m not the one for him. _But the truth is-- maybe you’re not either--”_

“What’s going on?” 

Daniel and Carmen are standing over the table, both glowing and covered in a thin sheen of sweat. Daniel is breathing hard, but looking between Johnny’s pale face and Tracey, wiping her tears away. 

Tracey inhales, wipes her hands across her face and on her dress, gathers her purse and her jacket up. She tries to rearrange her expression to something normal, but it’s a sad imitation. “I’m, um, I’m gonna go, I’m just not feeling very well--” 

Daniel gently twists her around, brown eyes full of concern, “What’s wrong-- hey I can take you home--” 

She sniffs, smiling weakly. “That’s okay, Daniel. I’m going to call an Uber.” 

“No, no. We’re going, come on--” 

He grabs for his jacket but she stops him, laying a hand over his. “Daniel. Stop. It’s okay.” 

“But--” 

“It’s okay,” she nods, reaches up to pat once, twice at his shoulder, pulls a short, shaky smile. “You were really kind to me. Thank you for that.” 

She walks off, leaving the table silent. 

Daniel turned slowly, murderously, to Johnny. “What did you say to her?” 

“I--” Johnny fumbles.

“I think I’m gonna join her--” Carmen grabs her purse. 

“I’ll take you--” 

“No, Johnny. No.” Carmen shakes her head, looking down at him, with what he wasn’t sure. Pity, mostly. Disappointment. The usual.

She grabs her phone, ready to leave, but turns back to Daniel. “Daniel. Get a clue, okay?” 

Daniel’s mouth drops open. 

He turns back to Johnny. 

“I’m gonna ask you again. What did you say to her?” 

“I didn’t-- she’s the one who freaked out--” Johnny’s voice sounds frantic, full of excuses, even to his own ears. He can feel his heart picking up, it was all getting out of control--

“Why did you even come here tonight, Johnny, why did you do this to me?” 

“I was on a date too!” Johnny scoffs. They’re starting to get looks from nearby tables, a waiter makes an abrupt about-face across the room. “What, you have dibs on the only salsa night in town?!” 

He’s panicking. He’s definitely panicking. 

_“The fuck did you say to her?”_ Daniel’s voice rings like a gunshot. The surrounding tables all cease conversation.

“Hey,” Johnny stands, trying to keep his own voice calm. “Let’s go outside, okay? I can explain.” 

Daniel licks his lips, shakes his head. 

“Fuck you, Johnny,” he says, and heads for the door. 

Johnny throws three fifties on the table and runs after him.

***

Tracey’s Uber pulls up within a minute. She wipes her eyes, glancing down at her phone screen. _“Look for Louie in a silver Audi,”_ the text cheerily exclaims, just as a silver Audi pulls up to the curb. 

She steps to the curb, pulls the door open and drops down into the backseat. The night is already receding behind her, and she blocks out Daniel’s stricken face, and Johnny’s horrible words. She thinks of her bedsheets, empty but welcoming, and maybe a glass of wine before bed. 

“Hey,” the driver turns around, dark hair and startlingly bright blue eyes. “North Hollywood, right?” 

_You’re a vulture,_ he had said. _An opportunist._

She leans her chin in her hand, trying to breathe through the ache in her chest, the tightness in her throat. She swallows, and somehow it makes it even worse. 

“Headed home for the evening?” the driver asks cheerily, eyes finding hers in the rear-view mirror. He had an East Coast accent, the type of obvious Italian that Daniel was so good as smoothing over and hiding. “Or are you just gettin’ started?” 

She breathes in through her nose, picks her forehead up from the glass. “Uhm, just h-hooome,” her voice cracks, and it’s just over. She drops her face, hiding behind her hands. She pulls her glasses off before they slide messily from her nose. 

_“Oh--_ Whoa, hey, are you okay?” 

She tries to choke out an _okay,_ but only manages another racking sob. 

“Here,” he fumbles up front, and then a kleenex appears in front of her nose. 

_“Ooohhh,”_ she tries to keep her voice steady. “T-thank you, I’m f-fine, I’ll be fine in a minute,” 

“Here, take this too,” he hands back a bottle of water. “What happened?” 

She manages another shaky ‘thank you’, and takes a drink, loosening her throat, and her vision clears a little.

“Just a...” she sighs heavily. “Just a really bad date.” 

“That’s crazy. Any guy would be lucky to go on a date with a beautiful girl like you.” He nods firmly, meeting her eyes in the mirror again.

“Thanks.” She bites back a smile. Men had stopped complimenting her like that after she hit her thirties. 

“Sorry, I don’t mean that in a creepy way. But seriously, whoever that guy is, he’s gotta be crazy.” 

She looks out through the window, sees a LaRusso Auto Billboard. “Well that’s him right there,” she laughs, blowing into a kleenex.

“What are you talking about?” They’re at a stoplight on Van Nuys. 

She cranes forward, pointing up through the windshield. “LaRusso Auto-- that’s the guy I was on the date with.” She leans back into the seat. “He was definitely more interested in arguing with his buddy than he was in talking to me. I mean he’s either gay or I’m more pathetic than I thought.”

His eyes get a little wider.

“I mean...I’ve been in love with this guy forever. I dunno it's complicated though, he was married, and his wife died in this... horrible accident last year. Just...I think maybe I was pushing too soon.” 

“You’re....you were just on a date with Daniel LaRusso?” 

“Yeah,” she sniffs. 

“Oh my God,” he says. “You gotta be _shittin’ me--”_

She jerks a little at his total abandonment of professionalism. “What, do you know him?” 

“Oh, my God,” he says again, like he can’t believe it. “You’re gonna love this. Hey, what’s your name again?” The light is still red, and he twists back in his seat to face her. 

“Tracey,” she blinks. 

“Nice to meet you Tracey. I’m Louie LaRusso. My cousin is Daniel LaRusso, and he’s also apparently a huge fucking idiot.” 

Tracey’s mouth drops open. The light turns green, and Louie finally turns around and eases onto the gas. “This is crazy,” he mutters, more to himself. “This is just _nuts!”_

“You’re... you’re his _cousin?!”_ she repeats, shaking her head. 

Louie meets her eyes in the mirror again. “Yeah. Would you wanna grab a drink with me?”

She notices for the first time. His accent was obvious, almost obnoxious. He wasn’t her type, jaw too square, brow a little too heavy. He could stand to lose fifteen pounds, his face was a little too soft. a jockish sort of boyishness. He could be twenty-five or fifty, and anywhere in-between. He wasn’t lean like Daniel, wasn’t light and soft. 

Wasn’t exactly Daniel’s brand of _pretty._

But there _was_ a familiar kind of sweetness about him. And he had maybe the most striking eyes she’d ever seen on a man, clear and wide and guileless. So unlike Daniel’s and their evasive, hidden depths.

“Yeah,” she nods. “I’d like that.” 

***

“LaRusso,” Johnny yells, and Daniel keeps his head down and walks, but the fucking guy can _move._ “C’mon, man--” 

He sees the lights of the Audi flash, the little key fob pressed tight in his hand.

Johnny catches him with his hand on the door handle. “LaRusso, just listen--” 

Daniel whips around, throwing Johnny’s hand from his elbow. He’s so fucking angry, he has to hold his fists down at his side, he wanted to hit something Johnny, the car, _anything--_

 _“The hell is wrong with you?_ You show up, sabotage my date-- _why do you have to be such a dick?_ She was never anything but nice to you--” 

Johnny throws his hands up, “You shoulda heard what she just said to me in there, she’s not as nice as you think--” 

“You know what Johnny, forget it. I’ll straighten it out. I will _unfuck_ your fuckup, because apparently that’s my job--”

Johnny falls silent, his head tipping to the side, and this is a little too fast too soon, a little dangerous, a little too close to Robby, and the cheap rent, and the car, and the dojo, and they’ve had this fight before, a few times, the last one ending with Johnny yelling, _“What don’t I owe you? My whole goddamn life is pro-rated by Daniel fucking LaRusso”_ and slamming his bedroom door in Daniel’s face. 

Daniel had tried, had promised himself, never to get near this sore spot again. Because he liked Johnny, and he liked Robby, he liked his life with them.

His anger fades, just a little, just a softening of the edges. 

“You just,” he snaps, “I don’t understand you sometimes.” 

Johnny sucks his cheeks in, hands in his pockets. Daniel can tell, too, that he’s still drunk, the glassy, watery eyes and all he can think of is a year ago in the school parking lot, Johnny trying to do better, _it’s fuckin’ sad,_ he had said, and _I’ve gotta do better for him._

“Just get in the car. You can’t drive.” Daniel drops into the driver’s side and waits, and Johnny finally walks around and opens the passenger side. They drive in silence, out of the parking lot. Normally, this would be when one of them cracked a joke, let the fight slide. 

“I’m sorry, man.” Johnny runs his hand over his hair, his face, staring straight through the windshield. “I just...I couldn’t sit there and let you get into that. You’re too nice, and she was taking advantage, and she-- she was sucking you in.” 

Daniel squeezes the steering wheel, trying to keep a lid on it. “That’s my choice. I don’t need you telling me who I should or shouldn’t date.” 

_“You can’t even see it_ \-- you came home last Friday and you were _fucked up_ , Daniel, it’s like you don’t even remember--” 

“I was _drunk_ , and it was my first time out with a woman since Amanda-- of course I was fucked up--” 

“She didn’t have to blow you on the first date, Jesus fucking Christ, she knows, she _knows_ everything that’s happened to you, why the _fuck_ would she do that?!”

Daniel nearly rear-ends a minivan at a red light. “We were both drunk. We’re adults, and Johnny, that has nothing to do with you, it’s not your business--” 

“You’re _my best friend_ , you _asshole_ , you came home and _cried into my t-shirt_ , it is my fucking business-- and yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have come out tonight-- but she picked a fight with me so I told her I didn’t like her.”

Daniel shakes his head. “You know just because you wanna sabotage your relationship doesn’t mean you have to do the same to mine.”

Another red light. Johnny arched forward, straining against his seatbelt. _“You don’t even like her—”_

“You don’t get to decide that for me--” 

“She wasn’t any good for you and _I was protecting you--”_

“No, no. You were protecting yourself, Johnny.”

“Oh, _bullshit--”_

“You were worried it was gonna get serious, and I was gonna kick you out, no more cheap rent--” 

“FUCK YOU, if you think this is about rent money--” 

Daniel’s vision was getting foggy, his hands were shaking. He turns off the boulevard onto a sidestreet, pulls over to the curb, and slams the shift stick into park with a gut-churning jolt. He turns fully, twisting in his seatbelt. 

“Then tell me-- What do you want, John, if it’s not about that, what’s it about?”

Johnny sits back, raking his hands through his hair. “It’s not the rent, or the house. It fucking...it never was, and I wish you wouldn’t bring that up. I’m trying to pay my fair share, and if it’s not enough then you gotta tell me and I’ll figure something out.”

Daniel feels immediately like shit. “I’m sorry. I know that. But you gotta give me something-- you can’t do this shit to me and not tell me why. I mean...that’s crazy. Tonight was _crazy_. You know that, right?” 

“I know. I wasn’t...I didn’t really think it all through.” His voice was strained, and the last of Daniel’s anger melts away. This was something else. 

Daniel waits, biting his lip. Johnny was looking out the window, away, anywhere but at him. His fist was curled tight on his knee. 

“John,” he starts gently, but doesn’t finish. Johnny leans across the console and kisses him, a hand curved around his jaw, the other one sort of hovering over his cheek. 

It’s brief, and tender, and totally shocking. Daniel’s not even sure if he closed his eyes, he’s hot and cold all over, he can’t find his voice. 

_Get a clue,_ Carmen had said, and it echoes in his ears, over, and over again. 

Johnny pulls back, slumps back into his seat. _“Fuck._ Sorry.”

“I—” he starts, breath heaving. He has no idea what he was going to say.

“It’s fine,” Johnny snaps roughly. “Let’s just go home.” And he can’t even look at Daniel, he stares out the passenger window, and he doesn’t say anything else. 

Daniel has no idea how he shifts back into drive, how he pulls back into traffic or remembers how to get home. His lips are still wet. The place on his jaw where Johnny’s fingers had touched was numb and warm. 

He has no idea how long the drive lasts. Maybe five minutes, maybe fifteen.

Johnny jumps out as soon as the car shifts to park, keys already in hand, gets the front door open. Daniel sits in the car, frozen for _one, two, three_ seconds, hands heavy on the wheel. There’s a high-pitched tone in his head, his thoughts are slowing down to quiet whispers, murmurs, it’s all feeling now, all instinct, the realization that his feet will carry him where he needs to go. 

He shuts the front door, he can just see the outline of Johnny’s shoulders down the long back hallway, the lights are all off and he crosses the length in what seems like one long stride. He puts a hand on his shoulder, pulls him around--

_Must not lose to fear_

Adrenaline shoots hot down his limbs, his breathing picks up like crazy, like he’d just run a mile in the rain and there wasn’t anything in the way anymore. He was used to pushing through fear, through the dark, and waiting for him on the other side was Johnny. Just Johnny, and it seemed so obvious now. 

_Get a clue,_ she had said, and he feels _so stupid,_ that this thing had been right in front of his nose, for months now, maybe longer, but now wasn’t the time to go back and count the missteps. 

His fingers dig in and he drags Johnny back by the shoulder, pins him up against the wall, and at the last second it all comes together like choreography, like a perfectly rehearsed dance-- Daniel steps up and in, one hand pinning Johnny’s shoulder, the other sliding through his hair, across his ear and Johnny’s already there, an arm wrapping around his waist, shifting his hips flush, the other framed around Daniel’s jaw. 

Daniel pushes, and Johnny’s there to pull him in. 

They’re pressed together from forehead to foot, locked in with every curve and yawning space, and _Jesus,_ he thinks, _the fit of us--_ it was crazy, like puzzle pieces clicking down, soft and perfect, cut just for this.

It wasn’t like this, was never like this, with Amanda.

Johnny’s breath is hot, blowing out from his nose, lips locked in, he tasted like booze but something else underneath, something else entirely. Daniel’s head was numb, spinning, his breath was still out of control so it might have been hyperventilation, or the opposite whatever that was. Johnny eases back, hands keeping Daniel firmly in place. His mouth dips, grabs Daniel’s lower lip, and he _bites down--_

 _“Fuuuck--”_ Daniel heaves, a low heat twisting tight in his stomach, and he still can’t really believe any of this. 

“Yeah?” Johnny keeps him close, nose pressing into his cheek. 

“Yeah,” Daniel nods several times, very quickly and seals their lips back together. 

Johnny pushes up, slams him quick and hard across the hallway. Daniel grunts, his shoulder blades smack painfully into the wall, winged out with his hands framing Johnny’s face and jaw. His shoulders and chest look huge in the dark, crowding Daniel up against the wall, and he’s half certain one of them cut a lip against teeth in the collision. 

Daniel drags his hands down, wraps his fingers in Johnny’s shirt, he can feel the heat of Johnny’s heaving chest through the material. 

He steps back, and pulls them both through the open door of his room. 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY NOT SORRY.
> 
> Thanks to cutesynamehere for all the tortured R.E.M. angst-spiration. I promise those lyrics will appear as epigraph soon enough. WHEN THE REAL ANGST STARTS, lol. 
> 
> Thanks to lostmagician for all her sweet reviews and the encouragement for this story!! The honeymoon period starts now, mon amie.
> 
> I'm sort of anxious Carmen is too OOC. But she was drunk, and being a real good pal to Johnny despite possible lingering feelings. And well. I needed her for the humor.
> 
> OH also, Johnny called Chris "Mr. Brown" in the last chapter. Chris doesn't have a canon last name yet, but I named him Chris Brown as an homage to Bobby Brown, because Chris has that great balance of toughness and sweetness to him that I see in Bobby.
> 
> Let me know what you think!! About the story AND if you agree with Miguel on Johnny's Kinsey scale rating. Lol.


	8. Terra Incognita

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honeymoons never last

> But Ruth said:
> 
> “Entreat me not to leave you,
> 
> Or to turn back from following after you;
> 
> For wherever you go, I will go;
> 
> And wherever you lodge, I will lodge;
> 
> Your people shall be my people,
> 
> And your God, my God.
> 
> Where you die, I will die,
> 
> And there will I be buried.
> 
> The Lord do so to me, and more also,
> 
> If anything but death parts you and me.”

> \- Ruth, to Naomi (The Book of Ruth KJV 1:16-17)

### Friday, August 30, 2019

Daniel has kissed five people in his life. And he had thought, at one point or another, that he was going to marry each and every one of them.

He chased Coleen Kelly around the playground in second grade during a game of tag. He corners her behind the big yellow slide and says _“You’re It!”_ She leans in and presses her lips to the corner of his mouth, and says, _“gotcha”_ and he’s too stunned to even eat lunch later. It takes him a week to find a ring in a Crackerjack box but he leaves the ripped open box on the breakfast table and runs to class and gets down on one knee and says, _“Will you marry me?”_ and her eyes get big and she shakes her head back and forth at her desk and he is the laughing stock of the class for the next two months. 

Judy’s got dark hair and freckles up and down her arms and green eyes and she can ride her bike just as fast as anybody in the eighth grade. They ride up to the pavilion at Weequahic Park and she pulls one of her father’s beers from her backpack and it tastes terrible but they drink it together and he’s in the middle of talking about Tom Seaver or something and she leans over and kisses him and it’s messy and she tastes like beer and strawberry chewing gum. She leans back and tells him, _“You’re not like the other boys,”_ and she rests her head on his shoulder. He puts an arm around her and tries to calm his heart down a little. She writes to him every week after he moves to the Valley, but after a couple of replies the letters stack up and he just...he doesn’t have room to think about her anymore. 

His life those first couple of months oscillates between a dream and a nightmare, between putt-putt with Ali Mills and getting the shit kicked out of him that dark Halloween night, five garish, ghastly faces floating in and out of focus. But it’s not so bad, breathing through sore ribs, when he has Ali to look at across the lunchroom table. He kisses her on his birthday and between classes and every time, every time he thinks _this is it, she’s the one for me, this is the rest of my life._

It’s too bad it all ends in tears and a screaming match over the smoking radiator of the Ford. She tells him she loves somebody else and he says some things he regrets and he lets her walk by herself back to the dorms at UCLA a mile away. 

He regrets that too, letting her walk back alone.

Kumiko was so dreamlike, he’s not even sure sometimes if she was real. She was like somebody had designed the polar opposite of Ali, almost like an antidote. He spends whole afternoons watching her dance on the beach, the gentle sweep of her toes in the sand, the twist of her waist and the soft downward angle of her forearms and wrists, the tips of her pale fingers painting shapes against the blue Okinawan sky. He kisses her in front of the airport and she tells him she’ll see him soon, she’s already got the application to Cal Arts. 

He doesn’t get her letter for another month, telling him she wasn’t coming, that she got into the program in Tokyo.

 _I’m done with love,_ he tells Mr. Miyagi. And he is, for a while. Jessica is intriguing, with her clay-water hands and her oversize denim shirts, but he isn’t a little relieved to have a friend, if only for a little while. 

The tree shop doesn’t last long, the bills pile up and he gets a job selling used cars in Tarzana, outsells the staff there, shores up his resume and gets a job for a year at a GM dealership, outsells those guys and find himself as a junior sales associate at Valley BMW, selling cars worth more money than he and Mr. Miyagi would make in a year. He works his ass off there, he doesn’t date, he barely eats, he opens the dealership doors in the morning and locks them down at night and Mr. Miyagi makes comments about his weight and finding balance and bees and pollen. He finally gets an apartment because again with the bees and the pollen and he’s thirty years old. It’s just in time because a year later the new girl over in finance asks him out to lunch and she cracks a joke about his age _(what are you, sixteen? Is that your Dad’s suit?)_ and he looks up from his sushi, looks into her playful eyes, white teeth biting down on her fork (she gave up on the chopsticks) and this time. This time he knows. 

He kisses her on the second date, walking her to her apartment door. 

He asks her to marry him four months later. 

She says yes.

Ok so that’s five before Johnny, and then six if you counted Tracey, but fuck if he can remember Tracey right now, fuck if he can remember anything right now, because Johnny Lawrence is overwhelming in all of the right ways, and for the first time in maybe a year Daniel isn’t actively or passively thinking about Amanda or Anthony, or the state of Sam’s mental and physical health, or the dealership, or karate. 

There isn’t anything in his head except the messy gold of Johnny’s hair and the taste of barely-there coconut and Daniel’s own cologne on his skin, and the aching roll of his hips.

Daniel had pulled him into the room, and he was used to being the one in charge— but Johnny slams him up against the door and there’s a little switch in his head that goes off, one he hadn’t known was there but wasn’t so surprising, really. His shirt rips up out of his jeans and the buttons come down like _one, two, three, four_ and Daniel tries to return the favor but Johnny pushes his hands away and unbuckles his belt and walks him back and he says _I got it_ and shoves Daniel _hard,_ down onto the bed and climbs on top. He closes in and around and over Daniel, his biceps and thighs are like a cage and Daniel makes a last, half-hearted attempt to roll them over but Johnny pushes him back down and says _relax_ and Daniel sighs into his mouth and arches up to let Johnny pull his pants off and he says _okay._

Johnny pulls his own shirt off (chest like a fucking _wall,_ Daniel thinks) and kicks his jeans away and there’s just no telling how long Johnny had known the bottle of massage oil was in the bedside table but he gets that too and takes them both in hand and it’s a kick, low and deep, and Daniel’s spine uncurls and he keeps a tight grip on the hair at the back of his head and Johnny makes sounds with broken sharp edges, nose pressed into the side of Daniel’s neck, and he can feel tongue and teeth at the edge of his collarbone and eyelashes on his jaw. 

Johnny says _fuck,_ and he groans and he says _ohmygod,_ all in that cracked and broken voice and Daniel feels it too, that urgent heat coming and he pulls Johnny’s mouth down and around and kisses him through it, breathes with him and squeezes his eyes shut and it’s, it’s—

It’s a freight train or fall of a cliff with a soft, washed out ending and he rocks through it and his limbs go numb and rubbery and little lights, little lights hang in the room behind his eyelids and he surfs down from the wave of it, he can almost feel water lapping at his toes and it’s a crazy thought but something about Johnny always put him on the beach in his mind, maybe because of how they met, maybe he doesn’t have the head for this right now.

It’s crazy, something like that being over, kind of embarrassingly quick but it feels like the start of something new— which was stupid because he should have seen it before, this shouldn’t have been such a surprise, the sight of the top of Johnny’s Lawrence’s head bowed down, his cheekbone resting on Daniel’s clavicle and the ends of his hair blowing with Daniel’s breath, he’s so goddamn beautiful and Daniel’s not sure if he’s blown away by the orgasm or the sheer asthetics of the sight, or if it’s just so shocking, this whole thing, the _idea_ of... of _them—_

Well now that he thinks about it, it’s not so shocking. Not really. There’s kind of a yin-yang effect to the pair of them, there always has been. West Coast, East Coast, blonde and brunette, Cobra Kai and Miyagi-do. Black and white. _Harry and Sally_ , maybe. 

Daniel heaves a breath out under the weight of Johnny’s head, and he picks Johnny’s chin up with two fingers. It takes a second for his eyes to look up, dark blue catching the low-light, and there is hesitancy there, nervousness. 

_He’s waiting for the rejection,_ Daniel thinks, and he’s forgotten that even guys that looked like Johnny Lawrence had insecurities like the rest of humanity. Maybe especially so. 

Daniel studies him, tipping his chin up in his fingers, and shakes his head. 

“Unbelievable,” he lets a slow grin pull at his cheeks. “We coulda been doin’ this for months, and you’re just now tellin’ me?” 

His smile is like the break of a fever, like the most cliche sunrise you ever saw in a movie, and he pushes past Daniel’s fingers, straight to his lips. 

“You still gotta call Tracey?” he asks, like he doesn’t already fucking know. 

_“OhmyGod,”_ Daniel laughs into his lips, and he doesn’t care about the mess they made, not even a little bit. “Tracey _Who??”_

“That’s right, LaRusso,” Johnny huffs into his ear, nipping at the lobe, skimming a hand down his side. “You better forget her, you’re _mine,_ now.” 

Daniel would have punched anybody else, for the presumption, the implication— just because he was a little smaller than most guys didn’t mean he couldn’t pack a punch, couldn’t do some damage _—_ there was a pretty good sized chip on his shoulder, one he’d carried around all his life, shouting _You wanna go?! I’m just as strong as you are and I’ll prove it, I’ll knock your lights out buddy, you better back off!_

 _Control_ had become important, after his father died, and his life became wherever his mother’s job necessitated they go; after Johnny pushed him down that hill, and then nearly killed him with that flying spin kick, saved only by the mercy of Miyagi’s good timing; after Chozen pushed Kumiko to the ground and Daniel couldn’t do anything about it; after Terry Silver twisted Daniel up before he had any idea he was being molded into shape like one of Jessica’s pots.

There was control, and there was chaos.

Control was choice. Control was freedom. 

Chaos was your son and wife dying in a car crash on a steep canyon road in Santa Clarita. 

And Daniel knew that this was life, that chaos wasn’t entirely preventable, that sometimes accidents happened and sometimes people died and there wasn’t anything you could do about it.

But the theory, up until right about now, was _‘Control what you can, minimize the chaos’_ and that was about as good as anybody could do. 

But the thought doesn’t seem so bad now, of giving himself over, of letting go, of _submitting—_ and something in the low growl coming from Johnny’s throat makes it appealing, even. Johnny drags his nose down the line of Daniel’s jaw, and the muscles go soft and obliging as Johnny noses his head to the side, exposing a long line of neck. 

Johnny bites down, teeth sinking in slow and soft. 

Daniel breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth, trying to keep a damper on his heartbeat. 

But Johnny’s mouth gets slow and sleepy, and he finally drops off to the side and they do some shifting around to get under the covers. Daniel gets pulled into Johnny’s chest— once again manhandled in an undignified manner, arms wrapping around his ribs, they’re glued together shoulder to shoulder and elbow to elbow and ass to hips and knee to knee— but he’s too tired to mind, too comfortable to argue, so instead he finds Johnny’s fingers and pulls them up under his chin. 

He sleeps like a rock.

***

They sit on the front porch, the one she shares with her downstairs neighbor, but Maggie was working tonight, and so Tracey is able to scoot the two chairs close together so they can sit, tucked in amongst the geraniums and succulents, pots scattered over the wooden porch floorboards, and in little pots sitting on the top rails, weathered and faded with flaking white paint. 

He had waited outside while she went upstairs and changed out of her dress and heels, slipped into black leggings and a light sweater, grabbed a bottle of red and two glasses from the kitchen, and padded back down the stairs in bare feet. She pushes open the screen door and he was waiting with his hands in his pockets. He turns, and she reads his expression, a little nervous and a little tired, but he smiles all the way to the corners of his eyes. 

She sits, sets the glasses down on the little table between the chairs, and he walks over to take a seat, wiping his hands on his pants, waiting for a glass while she opens the bottle. 

“I like those better,” he clears his throat, gesturing toward the bottle. “The ones without the corks, you know, you don’t have to bother with the opener.” 

“Yeah,” she nods in agreement, smiling as the wine goes _glug glug glug_ into the glass. “I like it better that way too.” 

She hands him his drink, and they click their glasses together, and say _Cheers!_

“Or how do you say it,” she says, taking a sip, “Do you use Italian? When you’re home?”

 _“Salute,”_ he raises his glass again. “Least, that’s what the old man would say.”

 _“Salute,”_ she repeats, and watches him stretch his legs out, feet bumping against the porch railing. She taps her fingers on her glass. “So do you have a big Italian family back in New Jersey? Brothers and sisters? More cousins?” 

He bobs his head side to side. “Not really. My mother and my half sister live in Red Bank, it’s a little bit south of Newark. And my Aunt’s there too, that’s Daniel’s—” he stumbles a little, clears his throat over the awkward point. “Uhm, you know, Daniel’s mother. I try to stay close, check in on her. But to be honest, I’m tryin’ to move back here.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. I dunno, I just like it here. I like the weather, I like the people.” He trails off, looking out across the quiet street. “I guess I came back, too, because I was worried about my cousin. But...” he shrugs, looking down at his shoes. “Maybe he doesn’t need my help.” 

She purses her lips, trying to decide what to say. 

“I’m sorry,” he continues, “I didn’t mean to talk about him—” 

“No, no, it’s okay, I mean he’s your family—” 

“Yeah, but, we can talk about something else,” he hesitates. “What do you do? For a living?” 

“I’m a high school counsellor. I work at Sam’s school.” 

“Oh, wow, that’s _great—_ do you like it?” 

She nods, face warming from the wine. “Yes. I love it.” 

And so they talk about her job, and Samantha just a little, which leads them tentatively to Amanda and Anthony and the accident, and he talks about the car dealership and getting fired, and feeling guilty for being back in Jersey during the accident, and how he wasn’t there for his cousin, and he talks about how they grew up together, and how Daniel was there for him when his own father died ( _he was old when he had me, so I grew up knowing it was gonna happen, but it kinda knocked me out when it did, and Daniel was the only one who really knew what I was feelin’, ya know? I was fourteen and it felt like the world was goin’ down the tubes, and Daniel— he got on a plane and he just— he told me I was gonna get through it. And he was right— you know and then all this happened, and I came in for the funeral and I thought maybe I could help, somehow maybe I could help him out. But it was too much. It was too sad, with Anthony, too, and I just didn’t know what to say to him. I still don’t know what to say to him.)_

They eventually move on to happier talk, and he asks her about her childhood, and her sister, and he asks about what kind of music she likes (he like 80s hip-hop and she likes Radiohead but they both like the Beatles) and he asks if she cooks (she does, she likes to make pies on the weekends) and they talk long past the bottle of wine, and he doesn’t ask to come in and she doesn't invite him. 

She looks down, and it’s four o’clock in the morning. He apologizes and she reassures him, and she feels embarrassed because who wants to drive home at that time in the morning, so she offers him her couch—

“Oh, no, you’ve had enough of my family for one night,” he jokes, standing up, handing over his glass, hands a little clumsy. 

“Oh, um, well please be careful—” she sets the glasses on the porch railing, follows him down the steps, still with bare feet.

“You don’t gotta worry, I’m the King of Careful—” he shrugs his hands into his pockets again, eyes sparkling in the moonlight.

There’s a pause, and they just kind of look at eachother, smiling. 

“Well it was wonderful talking to you—” she says, at the same time he says, “Maybe we could get together sometime?” 

“Sorry,” he says, ducking his head, cheeks burning. “I should probably—” 

“You can call me,” she nods, interrupting, trying not to sound desperate. “I’ll give you my number.” 

She pads closer, toes digging into the cracks of the sidewalk, reading off her number as he taps it into the little glass screen. 

They say goodnight about three or four times, and he finally drops down into his car and drives away. She watches the red glow of his taillights all the way down the road, until they disappear. 

She turns to gather up the glasses and the empty bottle, and before she makes it inside she runs into Maggie, returning from her shift at work. Maggie sets her purse down and lights up, and asks her how the date went. 

“It started out a little rough,” she taps her fingers on the empty bottle, and smiles up at Maggie. “But it went really well, actually.”

Maggie laughs with her rough, smoker’s laugh, exhaling up into the cool night air, the porch light glinting off her silver rings. _“Get it, girl!”_

***

### Saturday, August 31, 2019

He wakes up only because of the recurring alarm on LaRusso’s phone, set way too early for a 10am class.

Johnny has a blank few seconds of confusion, on his back with his eyes shut against the morning light, when the heat all up and down one side solidifies into a body, and last night flashes through his head like Neo learning kung fu in _The Matrix._

 _Oh,_ he thinks, _right._ He turns, sees Daniel on his stomach and elbows, reaching for his phone to shut the alarm off. He gets the damn thing to shut off and turns around, expression groggy and a little nervous, maybe, and Johnny was going to say something to break the ice and ends up laughing out loud, right in his face. 

It’s just. His _hair._ It was sticking up in hilarious places, and he looks closer to the sixteen year old kid Johnny remembers than he’s ever seen him as an adult.

Well it ends up being the icebreaker they probably needed anyway. Johnny reaches out and ruffles it around some more and Daniel yelps _hey!_

“ _— c_ ’mon, it’ll never go back to normal!”

Johnny pulls his hand back, watches him try to comb it back down with his fingers. He only mostly succeeds. 

There’s kind of a heavy moment of silence after Daniel stops messing with his hair. He watches Johnny with those big brown eyes (kind of gold-ish in the morning light), sitting there with his bottom lip under his front teeth.

“How’d you sleep?” Johnny asks, a safe enough question.

Daniel lets his lip go and rolls his eyes sideways. “Very, very well,” he says, tilting his head to the side and raising an eyebrow, and this is all sort of hard to read but it seems to be going in an okay direction.

“Oh, yeah?” he raises an eyebrow back and thinks _be cool be cool be cool._

“Yes,” he answers, with a slow grin that shows his teeth, and seriously though this morning light was doing really good things for him, the honey eyes and the skin and—

And Daniel leans in, looking a little hesitant halfway but Johnny thinks _thank GOD_ and leans up to meet him before he loses him, he tastes a little stale like morning breath but also just really fucking good, just like he had last night. 

“We’ve got class at ten,” Daniel murmurs from under his eyelashes, breath huffing over Johnny’s kiss-wet lips. 

“Cancel it,” he slides a hand around the back of Daniel’s head, holding that mouth in place. 

“We cancelled last week,” rough stubble under the pad of Johnny’s thumb. “Beach Day, remember?”

Johnny hums, and Daniel’s fingers sliding up his spine like a harp player. He shivers, ducking his face down into Daniel’s neck, by now warm and familiar. 

“Teach with me,” Daniel’s voice is rough, spoken lowly into the hair at Johnny’s temple. “You’ve got me the whole day after.” 

Johnny looks up. His teeth aren’t California perfect, but they call out to him like sirensong, and there’s a little line, a little crease sweeping above and in tandem with his right eyebrow, following the line of it. He’s looking down at Johnny through his Bambi lashes like he was something important. 

Several plans for the day flash through his head like ticker tape, _that,_ he thinks, _and that, and then we’ll do that,_ a wishlist, little parts of his brain lighting up, parts that hadn’t lit up in a long time, maybe not since Ali Mills and her dimpled smile and freckled shoulders.

“One condition,” he says and gets a knee under him, pushing up, so that Daniel has to look up at him.

“What’s that?” 

“Wear a gi today.”

“Oh come on—”

LaRusso thinks he’s big stuff but all Johnny has to do is kiss him hard with lots of tongue and he’s sighing and nodding in less than ten seconds, _too easy,_ because Johnny’s a goddamn professional with years of experience at getting what he wants. 

(It does take him a minute to remember what he was getting and why— because of LaRusso’s mouth and little sighs and sounds and his hands gripping Johnny’s back and sliding lower— but that’s beside the point.)

“What was that?” Johnny pulls away, enjoying LaRusso’s eyes like little magnets on his mouth.

“Yeah,” he breathes. “Okay.”

***

It’s an achingly gorgeous day, seventy-five and sunny with a pleasant, cool breeze shaking the leaves on the trees, little happy coins. Miguel gets to the dojo early, expecting to find Mr. LaRusso watering his trees, but the place is empty, and he keys into the front gate and takes his time changing into his gi (Mr. LaRusso told the class it was optional, that they could wear whatever they were comfortable in— but Sensei Lawrence wore one and this was just one of the little things they did, the old Cobras, keeping a little of the better traditions alive, back when being a Cobra was a _good_ thing.) 

He stretches out on the deck, looking up at the birds in the trees and the sun filtering through the leaves and the pleasant clunking of the bamboo wind chimes. He definitely preferred training here over the stale stuffiness of the old place. 

Aisha comes in next, and then Chris, and finally Bert and Nate (the latter back from vacation in Hawaii with his parents, or some other rich Encino kid thing). They all sit around inside the dojo with the doors open to the outside air.

“Is it just us today?” Chris asks, hanging his backpack on a set of hooks on the far wall of the dojo. 

Aisha nods, stretching out to reach her fingers around her toes. “Yeah, Sam and Robby are upstate somewhere.” 

“Ukiah,” Miguel swallows. “Mendocino County. They grow wine up there.”

“So your girlfriend is upstate drinking wine with Keene?” Nate coughs into his fist, pulling his ankles into a butterfly stretch. 

Bert snorted, reaching down to touch his toes, “Sounds really _romantic_ —”

Aisha clicks her tongue in disapproval, and reaches out to punch Bert in the shoulder, knocking him sideways. 

Sensei and Mr. LaRusso finally get there, and Aisha drops her mouth open and laughs in approval, making a high-pitched _“Ahhhwwww_ Mr. LaRusso, look at you! I didn’t even know you owned a gi!” 

Chris grins, himself wearing his usual workout pants and t-shirt, and nods in approval. “Lookin’ good Mr. L.” 

Mr. LaRusso rolls his eyes, waving off the comments. The gi was white, with the Miyagi-do bonsai on the back. Sensei Lawrence, standing next to him in his usual sleeveless black gi, was beaming, looking like he was thoroughly enjoying himself. 

“It looks really cool, Mr. LaRusso!” Miguel winces at the naked enthusiasm in his voice, and Sensei Lawrence snorts out a laugh. Sensei had basically accused him of trying to suck-up to Daniel on account of Sam. Miguel didn’t see it that way...but he had to admit, sometimes the things that came out of his mouth sounded pretty...stupid.

Anyway. They get through warm-ups, and kata, which Johnny sits out as usual— or tried to— but Daniel grabs him by the elbow and pulls him in line, and there’s like a solid thirty seconds of laughing and protest and Miguel’s actually pretty sure his Sensei didn’t need the play-by-play instructions, with Mr. LaRusso adjusting his stance, and the position of his arms, and there’s just— there’s something there, something that wasn’t there before. 

Miguel pulls Johnny aside after warmups, holding him back as the class files outside. 

“Uhm,” he tries to phrase the words right.

Johnny looks down at him, frowning in question. “What’s up, Diaz.” 

“Are you...” Miguel feels his mouth pull wide, in a slow, probing grin. “Are you _The Man?”_

Sensei’s mouth drops a little, and he glances back outside, to where Mr. LaRusso was talking the class through the next exercise. He looks back down at Miguel, pulls in an evasive breath, trying to hide his grin.

 _“Oh my god,_ you _ARE_ THE MAN!” Miguel laughs out loud, high and manic, but he can’t help it, because Johnny’s eyes were bright and dancing and mischievous. 

“Look at that _pep-in-yo’-step!”_ Miguel teases, snapping his fingers, and punches his Sensei lightly in the ribs. 

Miguel wasn’t fast enough, though, to dodge the headlock and noogie, and they tussle across the floor all the way out onto the deck, laughing into the sunlight. 

***

It’s late afternoon, warm light poured into the dojo and it was just this side of too hot, not stifling or anything but Daniel could feel the little beads of sweat sliding down his spine, pooling at the dip of his lower back, stopped only by the dam of Johnny’s fingers, his hand sliding under the loose open front of the gi, thumb dragging down Daniel’s stomach, and he thinks he could maybe kiss Johnny Lawrence forever, time just a hazy cloud above, the tatami mats sliding against the white cotton, rough under his shoulder blades. 

The sparring hadn’t lasted very long. 

“We should— hmm. We should take this somewhere else,” Daniel sighs as Johnny lifts up slightly. 

“Don’t wanna mess up your fancy karate mats, huh?” he smirks, shifting down to pull Daniel’s gi open more, lips against his heartbeat. 

“Don’t wanna mess up my back—” Daniel laughs, ending in a hiss as lips turn to teeth. It took some willpower, but he pulled Johnny’s chin up and around. 

_“Home—”_ he says firmly, working hard to keep a serious expression. 

“To be continued?” Johnny’s eyebrows quirk up, and he looks like the seventeen year old Daniel knew, maybe the one he could have known. He pushes his fingers through the blonde hair, he can’t get over how thick and messy and gold it still is. The black headband comes out easy, falling around his fingers. 

“Yeah,” he says.

“Dinner?” Johnny asks, shifting his hips. 

_“Oh, yeah—”_ Daniel nods, his cheeks strain at the edges. “Only the best carryout money can buy.” 

Johnny frowns, thinking. His index finger traces somewhere above Daniel’s right eyebrow. “Okay,” he says, dropping his fingers and looking Daniel in the eye. “I want Indian. You’re buying.” 

“Of course I am,” Daniel schools his face seriously again. “As long as you can answer one question.” 

“Oh yeah, what’s that LaRusso?” 

Daniel pauses, watches the playful blue eyes above. “Who’s your Daddy?” 

Johnny groans and sits up, and when Daniel tries to follow and raise up on his elbows, Johnny shoves him back down into the mats. 

“C’mon,” he sits up laughing, calling after Johnny, fingers still tangled in the black headband. “It’s a simple question!” 

Johnny’s picking up his duffel bag, feet already slipping into his Vans. He points across the room, sunglasses on. “You better watch that smart mouth, LaRusso.” 

Daniel gets to his feet, he knows his hair is a mess and even behind his sunglasses he can see Johnny’s eyes slipping down to the open front of the gi.

“You watch it,” he retorts, grabbing the Challenger keys from the shelf behind Johnny’s head. 

Johnny doesn’t fight him for the driver’s seat, and he has to admit, he enjoys the attention of Johnny’s gaze. 

And the hand on his knee, too, the whole ride home. That wasn’t so bad, either.

***

They actually don’t end up screwing around at all, Saturday night. They get back to the house and Johnny realizes he should really mow the lawn and doesn’t want to wait till tomorrow, so he regrettably lets LaRusso shower by himself because he doesn't want to shower and then get sweaty again. LaRusso leaves to go pick up the food because the place was ten minutes away and so not really worth the delivery charge. So Johnny mows and Daniel goes to get food and by the time he finishes and cleans up the food is ready and he’s exhausted, and they end up sitting with their knees together on the couch and they watch _Heat_ because it’s on TV. Daniel finishes his food and puts his plate down and folds his knees up on the couch, and during the commercial breaks he leans back into Johnny’s chest and tilts his phone up so they can both see Sam’s instagram pictures, her and Robby standing in neat green rows of vines, brown dirt under their feet, a high blue dome overhead, white clouds, it looks like a dream. Sam ends up calling, actually, and Johnny feels the rumble of Daniel’s voice reverberate, chest to back, and Daniel puts them on speakerphone so he can hear, Robby probably leaning over Sam’s shoulder to talk into her phone, five hundred miles away. The kids assure them they’re having a good time, and they sign off because dinner’s ready, they have to go. 

“Oh—” a little later Daniel taps at Johnny’s knee, the heat leaving his chest as Daniel leans forward to grab the remote, turning the volume up. “Man, I love this scene, this is the best scene—” 

Johnny looks up, he’s right, it’s the best scene in the movie, the diner scene where Pacino and De Niro finally sit down together, face-to-face, and Daniel drinks his beer and in-between he mouths some of the lines, DeNiro’s line about a regular life, _“What is that, barbeques and ballgames?”_ and then they talk about each other’s dreams, and they both admit they don’t know how to do anything else but play cops and robbers— that they don’t _want_ to do anything else.

And then Pacino leans across the table, and he says _“If I’m there, and I gotta put you away, I won’t like it... But if it’s between you and some poor bastard whose wife you’re gonna turn into a widow...”_

“Brother,” LaRusso says to the TV, taking his beer bottle out of his mouth, and he lowers his voice, “You are - goin’ - _down—”_

Johnny can’t help but laugh, because it’s absolutely the _worst_ Al Pacino impression he’s ever heard, it’s _terrible._

“Oh _fuck off,_ it’s not that bad,” Daniel says in a way that tells Johnny he’s been made fun of for this impression before. 

Johnny grabs the beer out of his hand and sets it on the coffee table and tugs him down into his arms, Daniel clicks his tongue like he objects or something, but he settles down with his head on Johnny’s bicep and Johnny can’t even really see the movie, tucked down in behind him, but he doesn’t really care. He falls asleep like that, with his nose pressed up against the back of Daniel’s neck, inhaling the scent of him, their legs in a tangle, Johnny’s arm around his middle. 

He’s half asleep, when he feels Daniel squeezing his hand, “Johnny, Johnny, wake up, it’s the ending—” 

The ending where DeNiro and Pacino are chasing each other around in the dark on the runway, all eerie silence and the sound of planes landing. And the lights catch DeNiro’s shadow before he can shoot and Pacino turns and takes the shot, leaving DeNiro all bloodied and stretched out and dying. 

DeNiro is dying, and he looks up at Pacino and he says, _“Told ya I’m never going back,”_ and Pacino looks down at him, totally devastated, and he just says, _“Yeah,”_ and they hold hands like brothers while DeNiro dies, and Pacino’s got tears in his eyes, and the music swells—

Johnny keeps his chin propped up on Daniel’s shoulder, watching the ending play out, and the screen goes black with the two men holding hands, one of them dead and the other bereft. He looks down and Daniel is misty-eyed. _It’s this fucking music,_ Johnny thinks, and his own throat was a little tight.

Daniel squeezes his hand again. “It’s so sad,” he says, eyes still locked on the screen, credits rolling. “‘Cause they’re the same, you know?” 

“I know,” Johnny reaches over him, grabbing for the remote, and he turns the TV off, leaving the room dark. He rubs his arm reassuringly, and then pushes up, swinging his leg over Daniel to stand. He reaches a hand down to him, tanging their fingers together. “C’mon,” he says, _“up!_ I’m not waking up on the couch.” 

Daniel groans but lets himself be pulled to his feet, and they float close in the dark, in the quiet house, in the afterburn of the tv. 

“So,” Daniel murmurs, sliding his arms around Johnny’s neck, tilting his head to bring their mouths so close. “Your place or mine?” 

***

### Sunday, September 1st, 2019

Daniel’s phone rings at 7:15 in the morning, and he would ignore it for any other person, but it’s Anoush’s ringtone, and it’s Labor Day Weekend, and he’s pretty sure if he doesn’t answer he would be hearing about it for the next year. 

He grabs the phone, almost yanking it off it’s charger, slides his thumb over the screen to answer, and throws an elbow over his eyes to shut out the horrible morning light. Johnny makes an annoyed noise turning over in the opposite direction. 

He clears his throat, tries (and mostly fails) to keep most of the sleep from his voice. “Hey,” he groans into the speaker.

 _“We need you in,”_ Anoush says without preamble. _“Jason’s got strep throat or something, I’ve got everybody else on the floor and if yesterday is any indication, we’re gonna need you.”_

Daniel takes a few seconds to breathe, swallowing away more fatigue. He lets several responses float past without verbalizing them, _this really isn’t ideal for me,_ or _that’s not what I was hoping to do with my Sunday,_ or the most truthful, _it’s just I’ve got Johnny Lawrence naked in my bed and there’s just a lot to do today—_

“Anoush,” he sighs. “I’d come in any other day, but today I can’t—” 

_“Sam’s out of town, what could you possibly have going on today?”_

Daniel lifts his elbow, looks across the bed, Johnny on his stomach, sheets slipped all the way down to his waist, _jesus_ and even the back of his head was sexy somehow. Daniel squinted his eyes, reached out to brush his fingers over the pale skin of his back, because _would you look at that_ , in the morning light you could see a dusting of freckles, almost invisible, he’s not sure how he missed them last week when he was rubbing aloe vera over his shoulders— 

_“Daniel? You still there?”_

He licks lips, and Johnny shifts in his morning snooze. Daniel pulls his fingers back. 

“Yeah,” he says softly. “Did you hire Louie back?” 

Anoush sighs deeply. _“You were pretty clear about where you stood with that.”_

Johnny breathes deeply, turns his head toward Daniel, but he doesn’t open his eyes. The sun lights up his hair and eyelashes, a bedhead halo. 

He frowns. “I thought you said you were gonna do it anyway.” 

_“No,”_ his voice is tight, frustrated, but also a little tender. _“I was pissed off. But it’s...it’s your family. It was always your call.”_

“Well why don’t you call him. He’s a better salesman than I am these days.” 

_“You sure?”_

“Yeah,” he nods to nobody, and Johnny’s eyes crack open, wincing at the light, and Daniel finds himself grinning, a simple, effervescent happiness filling his chest. “He deserves it. And I was being a dick.” 

He hears a fumbling sound on the other end, and Anoush’s voice like _hey, whoa, no—_ and then heavy breathing and his cousin’s voice bright and clear through the speaker, 

_“CUZ, cuz, you won’t regret it, I promise—”_

Daniel laughs, the effervescent bubby feeling climbing up through his chest and out his mouth, and Johnny’s eyes crack open wider, curious blue orbs, like a big orange cat. 

He thinks about his cousin, and his big dumb face, and his big dumb heart. How he’d always had Daniel’s back from the time he was a little kid. He remembers, because he’ll never forget, Louie sitting down the bench from him at his father’s funeral. After the service, Louie had come up and nervously held out his prized Nolan Ryan rookie card, clutched in his chubby little kid hands (he was already tall, though, six years old and already as tall as Daniel) and Daniel couldn’t do anything but cry and let Louie pull him into a hug. 

“Louie,” he laughs into the speaker, “Louie—” 

_“Yeah, cuz?”_

He swallows, still smiling, something about this morning and Johnny’s sleepy eyes causing his throat to close up. “I love you, you big idiot, you know that, right? I didn’t mean it, what I said, I never meant that. I’m sorry.” 

He hears Louie blow out a big breath. _“Ahhhh I never thought different, you know?”_ He sniffs suspiciously. _“Look, I’m not gonna let you down today, okay?”_

Daniel tells him he knows he won’t, and Louie tells him he loves him back, and Anoush grabs the phone back and tells Daniel to have fun trimming trees or whatever big plans he has for the day, and Daniel hangs up and throws his phone across the room and shifts over to kiss Johnny Lawrence good morning. He climbs on top of his hips and holds his mouth in place and Johnny’s hands are all up and down his back and basically. 

Basically. 

It’s a really, really good start to the morning.

He lets Johnny’s lips go for a moment, to ask, “So, what are we doing today?” 

Johnny blinks, forehead dipped in thought. “I was thinking we could screw.” 

“We can’t do that all day,” Daniel laughs. “C’mon we could go to the beach, make out, drink beer—”

“It’ll be a circus,” Johnny groans, picking his hands up from Daniel’s thighs to rub at his still sleepy eyes. 

“C’mon,” there’s a low buzzing in the back of his head, a constant whisper _this is the last full day you’ve got with him, the kids come back tomorrow and who knows, who knows, but it could be over._

“Fine. But I’m not getting up before nine. It’s a goddamn weekend, LaRusso.” Johnny pulls him down, and Daniel admits, he’s still a little sleepy, too.

But he spends whole minutes, eyes half-open, running his fingers through Johnny’s hair, fingernails raking lightly over his scalp, brushes his knuckles lightly over the nearly-invisible stubble on his cheeks.

Johnny’s gone, unconscious again, within a couple of minutes

 _Who knows,_ he thinks, fingers full of blonde, _tomorrow_ _who knows, but it could be over._

***

A car door slams, maybe an hour later, maybe more, Daniel’s not sure. 

Johnny is a soft hot weight snoozing in his arms. He sits up, trying not to disturb Johnny, but he doesn’t even need to see out the bedroom window and out to the driveway to know what’s coming, because he hears Samantha’s chattering voice and Robby’s lower tones and another, an older woman’s voice, one he hasn’t heard in months. 

Amanda’s mother. Naomi. 

“Shit,” he whispers, a cold shiver running down his spine, and finally he kicks into gear and _moves--_

“Johnny,” he yells, shaking him by the shoulders, and he tries not to think that this was maybe the last time in awhile he might get to press his fingers into this skin. Johnny was rolling over and groaning and asking _whassgoin on?_ Probably wondering what Daniel was doing pulling clothes on and tossing more into his chest--

“The kids,” Daniel rips the bedroom door open, Johnny’s on his feet in his underwear, blinking, trying not to fall over. “And Amanda’s mother, they’re here--” 

“Here?” Johnny’s voice clears, he tries to peer out the window but the sound of a key in the lock means that Daniel has to grab him by the shoulders and shove him through the door and across the hallway. 

“Let’s,” Daniel’s brain spins as the lock turns over. “Let’s talk about this later, okay? I wanna--” and why weren’t the words coming out right, and why were Johnny’s eyes already a little scared around the edges, why did they look like Daniel was kicking him out of his bedroom for any other reason than he didn’t want to have to explain all this to his dead wife’s mother. 

“I wanna see about this,” he finishes lamely.

Johnny nods, the skin still tight around his eyes, which Daniel was still searching, trying to wordlessly convey a better answer. 

The front door opens and Daniel pushes Johnny backwards into his room, because there’s a direct line of sight right down the hallway, and he uses the cover to press his lips to Johnny’s. 

“Later,” he promises, and turns back to the hallway, running his fingers through his hair, wondering what time it was exactly, and why the kids were back, and if it were possible they lost a whole day?

He relaxes his mouth and smiles and greets his daughter, throwing his arm around the shoulders of her sun-hot fleece jacket. He wonders how long he can keep the taste of Johnny Lawrence’s mouth on his tongue. 

He hugs Robby, and looks over his head at Naomi, who sets her purse down on the counter and pulls her sunglasses from her eyes and Daniel nearly can’t breathe because he’d forgotten, he’d nearly forgotten how much Amanda looked like her mother. The same sturdy jaw and chin angled off to a neat point, the high cheekbones, the sharply arched eyebrows, the sea-dark eyes. 

She looked older, thinner, more frail than the last time he’d seen her a year ago at the funeral.

She smiles agreeably, watching him with the kids, not with Amanda’s brand of quiet warmth-- though it wasn’t mean, or severe, or cold--

She was scanning him. Searching. 

“Hello, Daniel.” 

“Hey, Naomi,” he offers cautiously, as Sam and Robby start hauling their bags up the stairs. “I wasn’t expecting you guys today.” He doesn’t add that he wasn’t expecting _her_ at all.

“Samantha said you were doing alright,” she nods, eyes scanning over the kitchen. “But I thought I’d come down and make sure.” 

“We’re doing fine,” he nods, looking towards the stairs, the voices of the kids. 

“I hear you’re dating again,” her lips press together. 

“Where’d you hear that?” he fails to keep the snap out of his voice. Amanda’s voice in his head echoes, _ignore her tone, just listen to the words._

“Samantha told me over the phone, last week.” 

“Well it wasn’t anything. I just took her to dinner.” 

Naomi breathes in, and looks away again. Daniel can see the lines of her makeup, etched over her face. She looks to the fridge, there were a few photos there, and she wanders over clutching at her elbows. She reaches out, fingers one (this one Daniel loved) showing Johnny carrying Robby around on his shoulders in a fireman's carry, arm pinned around Robby’s thigh, Johnny’s hand gripping his wrist-- Robby’s hair falling sideways to hide his eyes, but not his smile.

It was after a practice a few months ago, at the dojo. 

She pulls her fingers away, reaches out to touch one of Sam and Anthony, an old one at Disneyland. _2011,_ his mind provides. _Anthony wanted Dippin’ Dots ice-cream, he got the cookies ‘n cream flavor and it melted all over his fingers, he got it all over his clothes and Amanda had to use a water bottle to wash it out of his hair._

“--thinking you and I could talk. I want to buy you lunch.” 

Daniel blinks, the memory fading. “Now?” 

“I’m leaving this evening. I didn’t want to intrude.” 

“So you surprised me with a flight down here to ‘see if I was doing alright’, but you don’t want to intrude.” 

She doesn’t answer, lips pursing again. “I think we should talk.” 

“About what?” 

She tilts her chin up, peering over his shoulder. Daniel follows her gaze, Johnny approaching with caution, fully dressed in a 3/4 sleeve baseball shirt, but the kids come barreling down the stairs, and Robby intercepts, greeting his father with a hug. 

He looks back at Naomi. She was watching the scene with the same distant, scanning gaze. 

Daniel looks back at Johnny, who had already put his sunglasses on and grabbed his keys, and was leading Sam and Robby out the door. 

“We’re headed to the dojo,” he calls, and he doesn’t bother waiting for Daniel to answer back, and Daniel can’t tell what his eyes were doing through the sunglasses. 

Johnny leaves with a firm slam of the door, and the house was quiet again. 

“I want to talk about my daughter,” she finishes with a smooth breath, looking back down at Daniel. Her earrings dangle, long and silver, hitting against the corner of her jaw when she turned her head. She swallows, throat working with effort, either with age or pain, he wasn’t sure. 

She turns to the fridge again, studying the Disneyland photo again, the happy smiling faces, Minnie Mouse ears and a big stone castle in the background, pink walls and blue turrets, it looked like a dream.

“Alright,” he nods with a rough voice. “Tell me where you want to go.” 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey there I have the bones of the next installment, it'll be a bit different, hopefully a fairly quick update! Thanks all for reading and hanging with me, I love you all!!


	9. Anodyne (Excerpts on Grief)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Year of Magical Thinking_ is Joan Didion’s account of the year following the death of her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, and her attempts to make sense of her grief while tending to the severe illness of her adopted daughter, Quintana.
> 
> Less than two years after the death of her husband, Joan would lose her daughter. _Blue Nights_ is an account of this loss, of ageing, of fragility. Of ending.

***

> an·o·dyne
> 
> /ˈanəˌdīn/
> 
> _adjective:_ anodyne
> 
> **not likely to provoke dissent or offense; inoffensive, often deliberately so.**
> 
> Similar: bland, innocuous, dull, tedious
> 
> _Noun:_ anodyne; plural noun: anodynes
> 
> **a painkilling drug or medicine.**
> 
> Similar: painkiller, analgesic, palliative

***

####  **From** ** _The Year of Magical Thinking_** **, by Joan Didion:**

“Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. 

We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not expect the shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes. 

In the version of grief we imagine, the model will be "healing." A certain forward movement will prevail. The worst days will be the earliest days. We imagine that the moment to most severely test us will be the funeral, after which this hypothetical healing will take place. When we anticipate the funeral we wonder about failing to "get through it," rise to the occasion, exhibit the "strength" that invariably gets mentioned as the correct response to death. We anticipate needing to steel ourselves for the moment: will I be able to greet people, will I be able to leave the scene, will I be able even to get dressed that day? 

We have no way of knowing that this will not be the issue. We have no way of knowing that the funeral itself will be anodyne, a kind of narcotic regression in which we are wrapped in the care of others and the gravity and meaning of the occasion. Nor can we know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of the difference between grief was we imagine it and grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself.”

***

####  **From _Blue Nights_** **by Joan Didion:**

“You have your wonderful memories," people said later, as if memories were solace. Memories are not. Memories are by definition of times past, things gone. Memories are the Westlake uniforms in the closet, the faded and cracked photographs, the invitations to the weddings of the people who are no longer married, the mass cards from the funerals of the people whose faces you no longer remember.

Memories are what you no longer want to remember.”

***


	10. Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're doing it again.

***

He was your father. 

Essentially, in every way that counted.

And it was sort of a magic trick, wasn’t it. You had a father. You loved your father. Then he was gone. 

And then you found another one.

( _what does that have to do with them?_ you ask, _what does any of that have to do with them?)_

You know. 

Somehow, you’ve always known the truth.

***

Your father used to call you his lucky charm. You were born in December 1968, the Winter after the Mets went 73 and 89, not bad but losing was getting _old,_ it was getting tired for a franchise created in 1962 that hadn’t had a winning season _yet,_ not a single lousy season— 

_“And then you were born, Dan, and that Spring, when you were just a little baby, everything changed,”_ (you can still remember your father’s voice, can’t you?) _“Everything changed, and we won the World Series! Zero to Hero, it was a Miracle, and you were my lucky charm.”_

You remember his hands, rough hands. 

He was a longshoreman, like his father. Like his brother.

Every season after that, every season that you shared with your father, the Mets won more games than they lost (hey, and that’s a feat, with 162 chances to lose). And then,

The year he died—

(November 1977, you remember him in the hospice, you tried to buy him a coke when he asked for it, but your mother told you it wasn’t any use, he couldn’t swallow if he wanted to) 

—the Mets lost 98 games. Abysmal. 

He always said November was the worst month. The chill rains come and the green leaves dry up and fall and turn into a wet brown mess under your feet and _no more ballgames._

You remember thinking it was a stupid thought, but you couldn’t help thinking _what a fucking waste of a season,_ and it had to be the last one he watched, mostly on the TV in the hospital, or at the chemo clinic with poison dripping from a bag into his arm.

Anyway.

Anyway he’s gone. And you don’t feel like such a lucky charm, anymore.

***

The first person you saw at the hospital that day was Robby. The cops drove you in and handed you off to the ER people and they led you off to a room with a chair, and Robby was in a chair, sobbing, and they told you to sit down and you’d already known, the whole car ride over even if you were hoping, somehow you knew. 

Robby had blood on his shirt, all over his jeans. He looked up at you and broke into new tears and you remember saying to him, whispering in his ear _it’s not your fault--_

Your mother told you the same thing after your father died. _It’s nobody’s fault Daniel_ and you cursed God and the church and your mother scolded you, a good Irish-Italian catholic, and she told you the truth. 

It wasn’t anybody’s fault. 

Sometimes, you just got unlucky.

***

You started this whole thing off, remember, you said “He was your father,” but you weren’t talking about your father. 

You were talking about Mr. Miyagi. 

How he came into your life, right when you needed him. Because you were gonna grow up and get married and have kids and they weren’t gonna have a grandpa, nobody to tease them or yank their bedsheets off early in the morning or take them fishing or buy them ice cream after Dad said “no”—

Sam called Mr. Miyagi “Jiji.” 

Anthony was too young. He doesn’t remember Mr. Miyagi. 

Didn’t remember.

***

_(Shut the door,_ your mind screams, _shut the door,_ because you don’t want to remember, you don’t want to think about it, think about him, not right now—)

Remember what. Anthony’s baby teeth in the little plastic green treasure chest in your top dresser drawer,

Remember that Sam was born bald, but Anthony came out with a full head of black hair, _just like you!,_ your mother said. He cracked his eyes open and they were so dark, not quite brown yet, still that murky baby gray, but you could tell he came from you,

He was so _beautiful—_

Stop it.

_Stop it._

***

Mr. Miyagi was your father, in every way that counted.

After Miyagi died, all you remember thinking is that it felt the same as it did the first time. A brain-deadening, heart-deadening, soul-deadening emptiness. The feeling that the ground was opening up, and it was swallowing you whole, or at least all the good feelings—

(You didn’t feel sad, so much. You felt dead. You felt like you’d never be okay again. Never feel normal again. Like life was now dull, long and stale. Flat. Just a shadow of what you thought you had before.)

Your father dies, and thirty-four years later you lose another one. And all you can think is this stupid thought, that maybe you’ll get a third one—

That the emptiness you felt in 1977, the emptiness you thought would last forever didn’t actually last forever, because you found Mr. Miyagi—

You _found_ him. 

You picked him up, and you put him right in the hole where your dead father used to be. 

You _used_ him. 

_(He was a replacement,_ you whisper, because somehow you’ve always known this truth.)

So. Do you want to talk about Johnny? About Robby? 

_(it’s not the same,_ you say, _that’s not what this is)_

How is it different?

It’s 2019, your wife is dead, your son is dead, and you’re doing it again. 

You’re doing it again.

***

**Lincoln Elementary School**

**Harrison, New Jersey**

**February, 1978**

She wasn’t used to New Jersey winters. 

It was February in Newark, and the snow still hanging around wasn’t white and fluffy like she had imagined. It was a gray slush lining the sidewalks, it was a brown, salty mess that stuck to your boots and the black rubber aisles of the stuffy hot bus, and it was great, lumpy mountains in the middle of the school parking lot. 

It wasn’t like back home. Winter in San Antonio, the live oak trees on the Riverwalk wrapped in white fairy lights, the Christmas tree in front of the Alamo, Santa wearing a red and white fringed leather jacket and cowboy boots. Warm, dusky nights under a clear navy blue sky. 

Newark was mostly gray. She missed the colors of Texas. 

She liked the kids, though. The twenty-two in her class were mostly brown, mostly poor, mostly bright, and all with big personalities. She likes these city kids, to her surprise.

She’d started out terrified of them, the first couple of weeks. They were fifth graders, which she had been warned about, a big difference from the kindergartners she’d been told she was getting. Sure, there were a couple of trouble-makers, but she thinks they were a little star struck by her Texas accent and bright blue high-heels. 

(She wore a different color every day. She thinks that’s helped, along with the motorcycle she rode to school. They thought that was cool, and she made sure to set her helmet in a conspicuous spot every morning, above their jacket cubbies.)

Norma shifted a pile of graded papers to the side, and looked up over her glasses at the newest student, a transfer up from fourth grade over Winter Break. It was lunch time, and instead of sitting with the other kids in the cafeteria, this one was eating his lunch at his desk. 

Well. The rules said he had to eat in the cafeteria like everybody else. But Daniel liked to eat his food as quickly as possible and then excuse himself early to come back to the classroom to flip through a pile of baseball cards and finish a package of Ding-Dongs. 

And talk. He liked to talk. 

Not with the other kids, though. But he liked to talk to _her,_ and she’d seen him chatting up Mr. Cassidy the janitor, and the lunch ladies all knew his name and he knew theirs. 

Daniel was kind of a strange kid. He was young, for one thing, having skipped fourth grade. He was nine years old, most of the kids in the class were ten or eleven. And even for a nine year old, he was small. His mother Lucille, who had met with Norma over Christmas explained that Daniel had always been small for his age, _“but you don’t have to worry, he’s got a big personality! He’ll keep you busy, I promise, he’s very curious, he asks lots of questions, his other teachers like that about him, but if he gets too chatty you can tell him, don’t be shy!”_

Lucille was...a lot. 

But very sweet. And very earnest. Very _eager_ to get Daniel into the class. Apparently, Daniel had been eager to get out of his old class. _“He’s just... he gets bored, you know. I mean he could use the distraction, I think.”_

The father had passed. That was what she had been trying to say. 

Norma sets her papers aside. She opens a desk drawer, pulls out the hat she was knitting. It was a new hobby, for a new place. It was nearly Spring, but still cold enough to justify another hat, she thought.

She sees Daniel look up from his piles of cards, stacked up in some new configuration, the logic of which seemed to rotate daily-- _“brand, year issued, team, alphabetical by last name, autographed cards over here, rookie cards over here, all the Mets are over here, and the ‘69 Championship team is over here, see--”_

Daniel had explained a couple of times, his enthusiasm contagious but not enough to keep her eyes from glazing over.

His big brown eyes catch on the red yarn. 

(And _oh honey,_ you wouldn’t believe how _cute_ \--)

“You’re making good progress,” he nods, long neck craning over his desk. “Last time I saw I thought you were making a hat for a baby or something.” 

She laughs, clicking the needles together. “I’d better hurry it up, the snow’ll be gone before I’m finished.” 

“Oh, you won’t have a problem, sometimes the snow sticks around here till April.” Daniel dips into his lunch box _(Star Trek_ themed, Kirk and Spock and the Enterprise pictured on the front) and pulls out a chocolate pudding cup. She has a feeling Daniel packed today’s lunch, it was heavy on the dessert. 

“Oh, well I don’t like the sound of that,” she purses her lips. 

“You get used to it, though, my Dad always says--” he trips up a bit here, hesitating, his eyes flicker down. “Um. That if the weather was nice all the time you wouldn’t appreciate it. You know, and like they say, if you don’t like it now, wait a few minutes, it’ll change.” 

“Mark Twain,” she nods. “Did your Dad read Mark Twain?” 

“Sometimes,” Daniel’s fingers stopped picking at the plastic film covering the pudding. “He and I read _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court_ together.” 

He paused again, and she waited. 

“I guess I sorta read it to him. He was kinda too sick to read.” Daniel kept up his study of the pudding cup, and finally snapped out of it, opened it up and shoveled his spoon in. 

“That was a very kind thing to do for your father, Daniel.” Norma kept her voice soft, and Daniel looked up briefly to nod. 

“Yeah,” he swallowed. “I think...he seemed to like it. It helped me out with a book report one time, anyway.” He smiled a wan little smile. _Poor thing,_ she thought in her mother’s voice.

She turned back to her knitting, but after a minute or two of quiet, took advantage of the silence. 

“Daniel,” she tilted her chin down. “Why don’t you eat in the cafeteria with your classmates?” 

He sucked in a breath, letting his spoon sit loosely in his hand. He shrugged, staring down at his desk. “I dunno. I like it better in here with you.” 

“Do you miss your old class? I know... it must be a little difficult, making new friends.” She tries to phrase it carefully, casually. 

He shrugs again. “I dunno I just don’t have much in common with these guys.”

“Oh?” she asks. “You like baseball. You like Star Trek,” she motions to the lunch box. “What makes you think you don’t have much in common?” 

He grimaces, finishing off his pudding. “When you’re the kid whose dad died people treat you a little different.”

Ah. She hadn’t expected him to be so forthcoming. 

“My mom,” he hesitates, looking up at her. “She says he’s watching over me.” He frowns, looking back off into the distance. “Sometimes I talk to him like he is. But I try not to do it much here, people think you’re crazy, you know, doing stuff like that.” 

Norma can’t help but smile, just a little bit. Such big thoughts from such a little boy. She sets her kitting down, folds her hands in front of her on the desk.

“My sister died last year. Sometimes I talk to her too,” she nods in a way she hopes in reassuring, trying not to let her voice get tight. 

“Do you miss her?” he asks, open and guileless, and it nearly takes her breath away. 

A well of emotions open up. She thinks of her sister, of their little apartment together in Alamo Heights, her sister’s finished and unfinished oil paintings all over the walls, propped in canvases in the sunny window wells, surrounded by little succulent plants. The smell of coffee and fried eggs in the mornings. The white and floral curtains. Her hair brush in the bathroom. 

All the little things. Everything packed into boxes, sitting in her mother’s basement now, and Norma needing to get out, to go somewhere new, as different as she could get with a teaching certificate and a _Teach for America_ application. 

“I do,” she swallows, trying to push down the sudden threat of tears. “I miss her very, very much.” 

“What do you talk to her about?” he asks, wide brown eyes unblinking. 

“Oh,” she breathes through the shake in her voice. “Just about everything. My classroom. My students,” she smiles at him, wide and indulgent. “I tell her I hope the weather is nice where she is. I tell her,” she has to stop, bite back the wave in her voice. “I tell her I love her. I tell her my cooking still isn’t very good, not as good as hers.” 

She has to stop, then. 

Daniel smiles kindly, in that little kid way, genuine and without reservation. 

“You and me, just a couple of kooks, huh?”

She laughs, wiping carefully at the corners of her eyes, sniffing into a tissue pulled from the corner of her desk. 

They chat a little longer, more banal subjects, and soon the bell sounds and the rest of the class files in, the cheery sounds of chairs scraping over the tile. She watches Daniel pack his lunch box away and carry it over to his cubby. 

He’s heading back to his seat when she gets an idea. She spots another kid coming through the door. 

“Charlie,” she calls, waving him over. “Come here for a moment please.” 

Charlie shoves his hands into his pockets, ducking his chin in suspicion. “Yes, Miss. Vann,” he says. 

She leans over her desk, speaking lowly. “Charlie you like the Mets, don’t you?” 

His freckled face brightens. “Oh sure,” he nods in enthusiasm. 

She smiles. “I thought so. You know Daniel’s quite the fan too--” she raises her voice enough that Daniel can hear from his seat in the second row. “Maybe you two could go to a game, sometime?” 

Charlie suddenly looks uncomfortable. “Oh, sure...” 

“Well there’s Opening Day, isn’t there? Weren't you saying the other day, Charlie, that your father can get tickets? You were boasting to the whole class...”

She lets her tone do the talking.

“Oh,” Daniel spoke up, “that’s alright--” 

“Well what’s the problem, the more the merrier, right Charlie?” 

Charlie shifted from foot to foot, and she gave him her sternest stare. Charlie turns back to Daniel, and says in a morose tone. “I’m goin’ with my Dad, if you wanna come along.” 

Daniel pales a little. “That’s okay,” he swallows. “I told my Mom I’d help her with something.” 

“Okay,” Charlie shrugs. “Suit yourself.” 

Norma reaches across the desk, grabbing Charlie by the elbow. She speaks through her teeth in a low voice. 

_“Make an effort,_ will you Charlie?” 

Charlie’s eyes go all wide, and he says loudly and without compunction, “He looks like a second grader!” 

The class bursts into giggles, and Norma feels her chest shrink in embarrassment for Daniel, who was trying his best to sink down into the floor. 

She gives Charlie ten minutes standing at the wall next recess, and tells the class to get out their Math textbooks. 

She keeps an eye on Daniel the rest of the class, and feels a sinking feeling for him, hand buried in his hair, eyes glued down to the textbook, fingers gripped white around his pencil.

She has a feeling that it was going to be a long year. 

***


	11. Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody Leaves

***

She was your mother, and she was gonna be there forever. 

Sid was gonna die, and it was gonna be just the two of you, like it was before. 

You didn’t know how empty things would be, after she died. 

Everybody leaves. 

***

Think about it. 

Ali wised up, Mom died, Shannon was a mistake, you failed Robby—

(You _left_ Robby.)

You left Robby.

 _It’s for the best,_ you remember thinking, hunched over a pile of fries in the diner, trying not to look over your shoulder out the widows at the tall grey concrete building with the helipad on top.

 _It’s for the best,_ you thought, after the fries were gone and you had finally admitted you weren’t going, that you’d never really planned on going.

 _(Coward,_ you whisper, _coward.)_

It was for the best. 

***

Remember when Ali told you what she’d always wanted to tell you, that she _hated_ the karate and she _hated_ Cobra Kai and _you know what,_ she hated Dutch and Tommy and Bobby and Jimmy, too (and how was he supposed to take that, that she hated his friends, because if she hated the ones he loved then really, c’mon, what did that mean--) she hated everything about it because it turned you into something she didn't like. 

(If you aren’t Cobra Kai, if you aren’t karate, if you aren’t the sum total of the people you choose to be around, then who were you? What was she talking about?)

She told you she was scared of you. And you were drunk, sure, and you were yelling, but so was she, and you took a step toward her and she-- she _flinched--_ like you were gonna hit her or something. 

The thought...that she thought you could ever do that... it was like after all this time, two years together and you’re wondering if she was ever watching the same show you were watching, because how could she think that? 

(Well don’t overthink it. She left because everybody leaves. It’s not complicated.) 

That was another thing, the thing about LaRusso was that he never flinched-- not on the beach, not on his bike (up on that embankment, he had his head down, pedaling as hard as he could just trying to keep the wheels straight) and not in the foggy night before your foot connected with the side of his face. 

Not in the car when you kissed him. 

He didn’t flinch back then, and he doesn’t flinch now. 

And that was the thing about LaRusso.

***

But you were talking about Robby. 

No, no, you were talking about your mother. How she died when she wasn’t supposed to die, and that death was just another way of leaving. 

(Don’t forget your father, she always said that _he left us but he didn’t want to, honey, and it’s not your fault, it’s got nothing to do with you--)_

Nothing to do with you. 

Funny timing, though. 

So there was always this thought, in your head because you knew mom wouldn’t take it all that well, she wouldn’t want to hear you say it but you know that he left because he knew you would be better off without him. 

(Just like you knew Robby would be better off. You were drunk, you were a loser, you could barely make the rent, remember _you were a mess--)_

You know it’s the truth, because you come from your father, and so the evidence would suggest that he was a loser, too. That he knew it. 

He knew, too, that everybody leaves, so maybe he was just getting a head start. 

It hurt though, didn’t it? (Doesn’t it.) Somehow, even if it was for the best, even if the truth really is that _everybody leaves_ and that _it’s for the best,_ it still hurts. 

(how could you do that to your son, when you knew what it did to you?)

You were a mess. There wasn’t anything for it.

 _(Coward,_ you whisper, _coward._ You were a coward, he will never love you like you want him to, and why should he? You broke his heart.)

You broke his heart. 

***

But things were better now, with Robby. 

They were better with Daniel, too. 

(but don’t forget, don’t forget that he will never love you like you want him to, and why should he? You will break his heart.)

He deserves better than you. Because you will break his heart, whatever’s left of it. He’s been through hell and back, and you think (stupid, stupid) that you could fix him, that you could keep him glued together, that you’re somehow magically (against all the evidence, because every other relationship in your life says different) that you’re somehow not going to fuck it all up? 

You think you’re _not going to ruin this?_

_Wake up._

***

You can sense it coming, can’t you? 

The only question is, are you going to wait for him to do it first?

(like father, like son)

(you come from your father)

The truth hurts. It has always hurt, even if it was for the best. Everybody leaves. 

Everybody leaves.

***

#### Encino Hills

#### Los Angeles, California

#### August 1985

Ali Mills is seventeen, she is packing up her whole life into a car that will take her up and out of the Valley, over the rippled back of the Santa Monica mountains, and down into the heart of Los Angeles. UCLA wasn’t far enough from home, but it would get her out of Encino, away from the Country Club and her mother’s perfect posture and crystal champagne flutes and frumpy cashmere sweaters and modest hemlines and the suffocating sameness of white walls that made her so dizzy she could puke. 

Some days, her worst days, she thinks she would disappear. Either that, or her soul would die, and she would wake up as her mother. So she tried to obtain things, keep a wall of life between her and the death of her soul:

The grades. The cheerleading. Soccer. Johnny Lawrence. Daniel LaRusso. Eddie.

She thinks these things (the pom-poms, the boyfriends) were like curtains, hanging over a window (her self, her substance). And maybe she only hung them so nobody would notice that beyond the window, there wasn’t anything to see. Only glass over concrete.

Sometimes after she lays down for the night, she thinks maybe she isn’t a real person. Maybe she was like a sack of skin and bones, or a robot. Maybe the only real things about her were the men, the hearts she had broken.

She pictures herself, sometimes, naked, made of wax, her skin full of inch deep depressions— _handprints—_ and she can see in her mind’s eye, every boy she has disappointed, and every one that has disappointed her, walking up to her like she wasn’t real but like a mannequin, pressing their hand into her skin and leaving a hand-shaped dent. _Marking_ her. _Shaping_ her. Making her, for better, or for worse. 

And maybe this is how weak women go through life, letting the men in their lives do the bending, do the shaping, do the work, and taking a little piece of soul every time, until one day you woke up dead wearing a Chanel suit, smelling like Estee Lauder. 

She loads a crate, some records, a ceramic piggy bank, and a lamp, and closes the hatchback with a satisfying _click._ She has a momentary flashback, Daniel standing furious in the middle of the street in his ridiculous blue suit, the engine of the Ford groaning, smoke pouring from under the hood _how could you do this to me,_ screaming, tears down his face, kicking the sick angle of the wrecked chrome bumper, _you wreck my car, you wreck my life, what kinda person does that?? You told me you loved me, you know, what kinda person are you??_

She pushes the images away, swallows down the sick feeling _not now,_ she thinks, _don’t think about it_ and she feels worse, because maybe he was right, maybe she was sick. Maybe she wasn’t really a person at all.

She knew, though, that he would be okay. Daniel was too sweet, deep down, too good, he would find another girl. And he had his mother, and he had Miyagi. 

She’s pulled from her thoughts by the growl of an engine. It’s not the white Corvette she was expecting. 

It’s Johnny. 

Johnny, who she knew, deep down, would not be okay. 

He’s achingly the same, aside from abandoning the red Cobra Kai windbreaker. He slams the door to the red Avanti, blonde bangs flipping around in the evening breeze, the jeans, Converse sneakers, the neat pale blue polo shirt. His sweetness, the side of him she remembered from the top of the ferris wheel, was gone, soured into sadness. He’d spent the last semester staring at her and Daniel, hurt and anger etched into his face. 

“I heard you broke up with LaRusso,” is the first thing out of his mouth, jaw tight, eyes a little desperate. 

She swallows, keeping her voice steady. “What are you doing here?”

“I want—” his voice breaks, he ducks his head and rolls his jaw around, covering up. “I want a second chance.”

“Oh, _god,_ Johnny,” she rounds the car, tugging the back door open, grabbing for another box of books stacked up on the curb— Vonnegut, Dickinson, Simone de Beauvoir, F. Scott Fitzgerald. 

Johnny grabs the box of books first, walks it over to the open car door, sets it gently down on the seat. 

It aches, how gentle he can be sometimes.

He turns back to her, soft blue eyes. “What’s that mean, _oh God?”_

“It means it’s too late, Johnny,” she almost can’t look at him, but she tries. “You see all these boxes? I’m going to college.”

“Yeah, and me and Bobby are getting an apartment in Palms, I’ll be like ten minutes from campus, it’s perfect—” 

“What, you’re taking classes?” she trods back to the curb. He beats her to another box, and she just watches him in his heartbreaking gentleness, loading her things into the car. 

“I’m working,” he turns back from the car. 

_With Bobby’s Dad,_ he doesn’t say. _Dead-end job, manual labor._

She bites her tongue. “I met someone.” 

“Yeah well break it off.” He seems unphased. “This is _us—”_

“I broke up with you, Johnny, _we are broken up—”_

“Things change,” his voice cracks again, and it’s a sign of how desperate he is that he isn’t stopping to cover it up. _“I’ve_ changed—” 

“This doesn’t—” she struggles for words, the right reasons— it had seemed right, anyway, at the time. Seemed like things were over, like Johnny’s periods of sweetness away from his friends, away from the dojo, were no longer worth the brain-deadening indoctrination of Cobra Kai, and the drinking, and the brief but shocking bouts of meanness. “This doesn’t change that, you can’t just reset things, we ran our course—” 

He said things, sometimes, usually on a mix of alcohol and weed, that she’d rather forget. 

“Look, I’m sorry I got drunk and missed your birthday,” and he said it so flippantly, too, and she wonders how he can really believe that was the reason. 

She knows, though, that Johnny was very good at self-deception. At telling himself certain things— like a relationship could end because of one hangover. Like living without mercy was tenable. Admirable, even. 

“I didn’t break up with you because you missed my birthday,” she snaps. “And I didn’t break up with you because you got drunk. I broke up with you because I didn’t know who you were anymore.”

He scoffs, shaking his head, like he didn’t understand what she meant. 

Again with the self-deception. 

She steps closer, pressing. “When you’re with your friends you’re one guy. When you’re doing karate you’re another. When you’re with me you’re another, and when you’re drunk you’re another.”

He bites the inside of his cheek, those walls going up, but she can see in his eyes, she was hitting him where he was sore. After all, they’d been over all of this before. 

She gentles her voice, seeing his hurt. “Johnny, I—” she thinks of kisses on ferris wheels, endless days at the beach, how seamlessly he had gotten on with her father, like he’d never had one before. It had taken a month of dating for him to tell her how true that was. “I like the guy you were with me. But Cobra Kai scared me. When you broke my radio, when you lost it at the Halloween party—"

“He poured water on me—” his face is immediately a hard mask, eyes a cold blue. 

“YOU COULD HAVE KILLED HIM, Johnny, that’s not a rational response—"

“So I was hurt, I was upset, gimme a break—" 

“Well I don’t want to be with somebody like that. I don’t want to have to keep putting you back together. That’s a full time job and I— I want more out of life.” She feels regret at the devastated look on his face. 

“Cobra Kai is over,” his voice croaks, it’s awful, all of this is awful. “That part of me is over."

“You loved Cobra Kai, Johnny, that isn’t going away, that is part of you.”

There is a yawning silence, his mouth works open and closed, breath coming heavier through his nose. 

“I love you,” he is careful with the words, and she actually comes close, closer than she thought she would, to giving in, and taking him back. “I want to be with you, I want a second chance—“

“You want too much from me,” she whispers.

“Ali, _please—”_ God, and it’s her name, the way he says it, that is so sad. 

But she— she can’t go back to that. Because Eddie is a way forward, and Johnny is just a long slide back down to a place she is desperate to get out of, to get away from. 

She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, watches him try to keep his chin from shaking. 

“Someday, Johnny, you’re gonna meet somebody that brings all those different people together. And you won’t have to— hide those parts, you won’t have to make excuses for them. They’ll love you for you.”

“And you don’t feel that way about me.” His voice is already hardened, the walls are going back up. Somehow, she knows, they won’t come down for a long, long time. 

She sighs, heavily. “No.”

He paces in a tight circle, and they watch a car go by. “So what was LaRusso?”

She swallows. “That’s none of your business.” 

“I just told you _I love you,_ ” he points two fingers to his chest, to his heart. “You _owe me—”_

“That’s not how love works,” she tries, and fails to keep her voice down. “I don’t owe you _anything—”_

He shakes his head, laughing in that cold, heartless way, and the Johnny she loved is almost gone, now, and she knows it’s partly her fault, the hardening of his heart. 

But much of that damage was already done before she ever even came along. 

“You know, I think you’re just zippin through as many guys as you can cause you wanna find this fantasy guy in your head who accepts you for the fucked up person you are.” 

The words hit her harder than she was prepared for, she feels her jaw slacken. 

He slams the car door shut, leaning down on her. She feels small, and it’s a sick feeling. He hisses, poison on his tongue. “But the truth is you’re afraid he doesn’t exist— there’s no miracle person for me, and there’s no miracle person for you either.”

“Screw you,” her voice is stretched, she feels a couple of tears slide down her cheek. 

He laughs painfully. And oh, how she wishes she knew how to move through life without cutting, without being cut. “Not me,” he finishes, eyes wet, shaking his head. 

Eddie’s white convertible pulls up, he honks in a friendly way. 

Johnny wipes his face roughly with the back of his arm. He walks back to his car, turning to yell over to Eddie, “Hey fair warning, when she trashes your car she’s probably about to break your heart.” His voice doesn’t crack, and he drives away with the squeal of tires on pavement.

Eddie comes over with a concerned look. He pulls her into his arms, and he smells and he feels nothing like Johnny. 

She cries, because of Johnny, but also because she knows that he’s right, that he was maybe not the only one with a hardening heart. 

***


End file.
